


Say When

by shadow13



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Family, Fantasy, Grief/Mourning, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow13/pseuds/shadow13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tragic accident makes Sarah call upon the power of the Goblin King once more, and he’s willing to help - for a price. While Sarah adjusts to life in the Underground, a teenage Toby deals with the unbelievable grief of losing a beloved sister - while simultaneously gaining an unwanted baby cousin. Slightly angsty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

 

 

_They're coming back_

_And you just don't know when_

_You want to cry,_

_But there's nothing comin'_

_They're gonna push_

_Until you give in_

_Say when_

  * “Say When,” The Fray




 

* * *

 

 

Goodbye 1998! No more Monica Lewinski, Mark McGuire, and John Glenn. No more “Titanic,” Celine Dion, and Billy Crystal at the Oscars. No more “Armageddon,” Tubthumping or boy bands. No more Viagra, Pokemon and Furbies.

Well – until next year, anyway.

Golden streamers were hanging from the ceiling fan of Sarah's apartment. Time Square was lit up in all its glory on her television screen, and there were enough dime store kazoos, noise makers and party crackers scattered over her coffee table to deafen half of the apartment building. Chilling on the counter of her tiny kitchen were two bottles: one champagne for herself and her parents, and another sparkling cider for Toby, no matter how much he grumbled that he really ought to be old enough for just a _taste_ of champagne. Sarah smiled at the thought, pushing her dark hair behind her ears, decorated as it was with colorful barrettes, lined with silvery streams of plastic tinsel. She was ready to ring in the New Year with the people she loved most.

“Are you sure you don't mind, Sarah?” Karen had asked over the phone as her step-daughter juggled the receiver nestled between her cheek and shoulder while simultaneously trying to cook a semi-appetizing dinner. “You wouldn't rather go out with some young people your own age?”

“Really, Karen,” Sarah Williams replied, switching the phone to her other shoulder to try and fix the crick that was beginning in her neck. “I'm just not in the mood to go out and get pawed by a bunch of drunk guys. I've done the New Year thing, it's fun, but this year I just want to have a couple of entertaining hours with you guys, okay?”

“If you're sure...” the middle aged mother replied hesitantly. “You know, you're only twenty eight, you're going to have to get out there and mingle if you're ever going to-”

“Oh, my sauce is burning, gotta go!” Sarah had quickly hung up and stirred the not-burning sauce before she had to go over _that_ conversation again. Come on, it was the twentieth century. Karen couldn't seriously think she wouldn't have a satisfying life if she remained single? It wasn't a big deal – it was just a “thing.” Like New Years parties, Sarah had done the dating scene. She'd gotten her heart broken and broken some hearts as well; she'd gone on more first dates than she even wanted to _think_ about; and she'd had a few steady boyfriends over the course of the last ten years. The relationships just always...stopped. One cheated on her, one they'd mutually broken up because they just didn't love each other anymore, and another...claimed she lived in a fantasy world he wasn't invited to.

“Ugh, that was the annoying one to hear....and it's _totally_ not true, is it, guys?” The Sarah of the present, the one getting ready for her miniature party, sunk on her black couch, smiling.

Wordless, a brownie in a jaunty red stocking cap handed her another streamer to hang along the ceiling fan, shaking his head in response to her question.

“Thanks,” she smiled quietly, passing him a nut from the dish on the table in an act of reciprocity.

…So brownies had taken up residence in her hall closet? It didn't mean she was locking some critical part of herself away from her potential lovers!

Sarah sighed, a dark lock of her hair swaying at the movement of her breath. Perhaps it was just a _little_ difficult to have a normative relationship when one bizarre night thirteen years ago led to her seeing all the glittering denizens of Above and Under and in between wherever she went. She'd always been imaginative as a child, but she'd never seen anything _before_ running the Labyrinth – that would have been when she'd have wanted to have fairy tale creatures beside her the most. No, it was only after the fact...when she could call to Hoggle or Sir Didymus from her mirror, and have them respond; or take a walk through the park and find a wood sprite giggling to her from the branches of a hawthorn tree; or have pixies giving her fashion tips when she went to buy new clothes. Oh, they'd all explained it to her as simple as the letters of the alphabet: she'd beaten the Labyrinth. Of _course_ she'd take its magic with her. Of course she'd _see_.

Sarah had taken this blessing and this burden in stride. It had been very apparent _very_ quickly no one else saw what she did, and she wisely said nothing, lest everyone think she'd lost her mind sometime in her teenage years (ah, but don't we all?). In fact, it hadn't been _that_ difficult to become used to being the only seeing person in the land of the blind. The various lesser fey and creatures of myth that had flocked to her, excited by her notice of them, provided excellent company when the mortals she was forced to spend her life with did not live up to her expectations – which became more often as she grew. She was the girl with the sparkle in her eye, the unearthly glow. And perhaps more importantly than that, she was a Champion: she wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but she found herself less tolerant of the petty complaints and foibles of her peers. It was hard to feel sympathy when she knew _exactly_ what a moment of rash selfishness could cost. Hard not to scoff a little at unhappy grumbles when she remembered the bone-wearing hours of struggle through the Labyrinth. If it made her a little colder, it also made her that much more impressive, chin held high through every trial. Where others of her class had groaned and mumbled under the pressures of tests or papers or just societal expectations, Sarah kept her mouth shut and simply pressed on until at last she was victorious.

After all, it wasn't like it was the Bog of Eternal Stench, or anything. She was pretty sure she could take on most human tribulations.

As for being the only Seer, well...she wasn't sure about that. Sometimes, when she sat in her family's garden and had quiet conversations with the pixies on the petunias, she might catch Toby looking at her – or at least in her direction. His eyes would be squinted so tight, it was a wonder he could see at all, his mouth turned in a solid frown. Like he was straining very hard to see _something_ , something that might not quite be there... Sarah would pale a little and quickly quit her fairy tailing, hurrying to distract him with some game or other. Sarah wasn't sure why she didn't want Toby seeing, only that she worried about him. After all his time with the goblins, it would only make sense for a little of that to wear off. The only explanation she had for her concern was that if Toby saw, he might also see _him_. And her little brother hadn't beaten the Labyrinth like she had; she wasn't sure if he could best the Goblin King should he ever appear again. Which is why she was vowed to be his protector, through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, against goblins and more domestic bullies and brats.

She was pulled out of this particular rumination on Toby by a soft tug on the hem of her black skirt; a chimney swift had come in through her...er...heating vent? Her apartment most certainly did not have a fire place. Not that it was the bird's impromptu visit that was distracting her, that sort of thing happened all the tim-

“Ugh...” Sarah dropped her face into her hand, going back to her previous thought. “Okay, so sometimes small animals come in and tidy up or _whatever_ , doesn't mean I'm living an elaborate fantasy life!” The chimney swift didn't seem to particularly care if it was keeping her from forming a serious relationship with a man or not; it kept pulling at her hem and beating its wings in a soft hum. “What, what is it?” she at last addressed it. The drab grey little bird looked relieved to at last be noticed and lit quickly to the clock hanging on her wall, settling there and pecking absentmindedly. The time was nine thirty. “I guess they are a little late.” Sarah stood up from her couch, stretching lithe arms idly. Her family ought to have been here some time ago. “I suppose I can call the house and see if they've left yet.” The swift responded with a high pitched twitter, apparently satisfied by her response, and took off back to...wherever it had come from. “As long as I don't start singing about fairy tale kings I'm _sure_ I'm fine.”

Sarah picked up her phone without any particular worry, dialing the number reflexively from memory. It was New Year's Eve, there was bound to be traffic with people going to and from glittering parties. It rang – and it rang. “Hello, you've reached the Williamses,” that was Toby's voices on the recording, stuttering over the plural of their last name. “We're not home, so please leave a message after the-” Smiling, the young woman hung up, satisfied. “See? On their way already.” If gossamer-winged faeries gave her solemn, quiet looks, Sarah paid it no more attention than she usually did. She'd sit back and find some kind of count down on TV, something to pass the time away. With no more than a click of her remote, she was dismissing any sense of growing alarm.

The Top Ten fashion blunders of the year – her family still hadn't come. But no big deal, right?

The Top Ten best music videos of the year: she watched “Zoot Suit Riot,” and “Pretty Fly,” and even sat through all of Puff Daddy – but her family still hadn't come. Just traffic, surely.

The Top Ten funniest commercials- she changed the channel by that point, glancing worriedly up at the clock. Past ten now. Alright, where were they...?

The sound of the phone ringing nearly sent her out of her skin. “ _Jeezes_ !” Sarah lay her palm over her breast to calm her wildly beating heart, her fight-or-flight sense startlingly active. She wasn't sure why, but for a moment, she was hesitant to grab for her telephone. Sarah Williams, the _brave_ Sarah Williams, afraid? And of what? She quickly shook her dark head to clear it, and grabbed the phone from its cradle. “'lo?”

“Is this Miss Sarah Williams?” There was a lot of static on the other end of the line, lots of...shouting. It was a man's voice, middle aged: he sounded tired, a little gruff.

“Yes...” she replied slowly, hesitantly.

“Is your father Robert Williams.”

“Yes...”

“And is his address seven-oh-nine Castle Heights Avenue-”

“Yes, so? Who is this, what's all this about?” It was perhaps a rude reply, but Sarah could feel a real terror starting to grab at her throat, and her thin hand tightened around the arm of her sofa.

The man sighed, a world-weary, heavy hearted, soul-straining sigh. “Miss Williams, we need you to come to the urgent care clinic at Sisters of Mercy hospital, there's been an accident.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Please, step this way, miss. Coffee, miss? Miss Williams, about the accident – oh, please, have some tissues. Yes, I know. Well, the other driver was...well, his blood alcohol content was point one five. Yes, it's very high. I can't tell you that. No, I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. What we really need from you is – Miss Williams, please. I know. Please, try to calm down, we want to get you through this as best we can. Yes, miss. Yes, miss. Well, what we need is for you to identify...yes, in the mortuary- oh Miss Williams, I'm so sorry. I truly am. Yes, both of them. And if you can sign this paper work – oh, it's for dental records._ This says it's for- _For Toby, yes. Well, if we use dental records, then you won't need to see him. No, Miss Williams, it's better if you don't see. It's better if you don't see. The glass from the windshield went straight through – there was no pain. It was so fast, no pain at all-_

She didn't believe them.

_It's better if you don't see. No pain, no pain at all. Don't see. Don't look._

_Don't._

_Don't._

_Yes, there will be an investigation – please, have more tissues. No, I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Well, the police have the car in custody right now, they may want to look over the things left in the- yes, Miss Williams. Well, you can pick them up after the holiday, the station will be open on...Monday. We want you to take these packets – they're for grief counseling. It's something the hospital offers. We have group therapy or private sessi- of course you want to go home. Of course. Please, let us know if we can help you, we will be calling you to release the bo- Oh, Miss Williams, please._

_No, we're quite sure, there was no pain. No, please don't ask to see, please._

_No pain. Don't look. Don't look._

She was standing her apartment again – dark, it was so dark. Not a single light was on, no flicker from a television set, nothing. The only thing she could see were the street lights filtering in through her living room window, and those were splattered with rain. At least, she believed it to be rain. She felt her eyes to see if she were crying, but the rest of her vision was crisp, not blurred. Her cheeks were dry; no, no tears.

An hour and a half at the hospital. It seemed so short a time, and also so long. Well, why would it take more time? They hadn't needed for her to make decisions on life support, or to give them insurance information or explain any possible allergies. There were _no_ decisions to make. Briefly, that was the worst part – she was powerless to _choose_ for them. Choose funeral parlors, choose music for the wake, choose what kind of sandwiches to serve – but _god damn it all_ , nothing important to choose! Nothing that _mattered_.

So quiet. The leaflets in her hand were crumpled with how tightly she held them. Her thumbnail had scraped away the ink in places as she dug into them on the ride back to her empty, broken apartment. It wasn't true that it was totally quiet, she could hear the dulled noises of parties going on throughout her building, but the sound never reached _her_ . Sarah wouldn't turn on the lights. She refused to see the streamers where she'd left them hanging, the party crackers she was going to pull with Toby, filled with corny jokes and paper crowns. She didn't care if they sat there _forever_ , she wasn't going to touch them. On her kitchen counter, the wine had gone warm.

Sarah took a few halting steps forward, the heels of her shoes catching on the loops of her carpeting. Thoughtlessly, wordlessly, she stumbled forward, and did not try to keep herself from falling. The pain of landing on her hands and knees was a _relief_ . With the slightest of choked whimpers, she drew her scratched hands to her breast, soothing over them for a moment. Her hands weren't the problem: it felt as though claws were tearing her apart from the inside out. _God_ ! She wanted to cry, she desperately did! She ran her nails across her smooth face until she was sure she was leaving marks, drawing _blood_ . She balled her hands into fists and pounded them mercilessly on the floor until the bones ached, not caring if any downstairs neighbors objected, or even heard. She wanted to _sob_ – and she _just couldn't_.

It was too much pain to be marked by mere tears, too much haunting sorrow. Turmoil, grief, no word in the English language was up to describing the kind of pain Sarah Williams was feeling, destroying her entire being.

“ _God_ !” She yanked her glossy dark hair, sending barrettes and tinsel flying across the room or otherwise breaking apart in her cruel, demanding fingers. “Why did this have to happen? _Why!_ ” She screamed fit to shame a ghost, screamed for lack of her ability to cry, and almost broke out in a choked sob. “I'd do anything, _anything,_ I...I-!”

Small eyes peered at her over her counter tops and from behind her furniture. Whispers too soft and in too many languages for her to understand were exchanged in cabinets and hummed behind various appliances. The whole world – even New York City, on New Years Eve – went silent for one moment, collectively holding its breath, to hear what Right Words Sarah Williams might say next.

Slamming her fist back into the drab carpet flooring, she shouted, “ _I wish the Goblin King would come and take it all back – right – now!_ ”

In the memory of her mind's eye, Sarah wasn't sure if the silence came first, or the crashing noise. A logical mind, a mind not fevered with pain and despair, one that had not seen what lay beyond the veil of this world, would have chalked the noise up to fireworks displays or a vicious winter wind and nothing more. Not Sarah. She knew _much_ better.

There was a crashing noise coming from her bedroom. Her tired feet slipped from under her as she struggled off the floor, barely able to find purchase, and gasped, tearing for the doorway-

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Come across you lost and broken_

_You're coming to_

_But you're slow in waking_

_You start to shake -_

_You still haven't spoken,_

_What happened?_

  * “Say When,” The Fray




 

* * *

 

 

Sarah's apartment bedroom did not have the elegant French windows of her parents' home in Upper Nyack, so it would have been logical to think she'd have been surprised to see her window pulled open, yellow-faded curtains wafting in the icy breeze. It wasn't like before, those thirteen years ago. A dramatic entrance of bursting through the window in a cloud of glitter could not be made – unless, of course, he did come in as an owl. A barn owl in Hells Kitchen on New Years Eve? If that is what had happened, Sarah had missed it, her fingers digging into the jamb of her bedroom doorway in an effort to keep herself standing on shaky legs.

He was just the same,  _ oh God  _ he was  _ just the same _ . The Goblin King was in front of her open window, and the merciless winter wind whipped at his tattered black cape in high, dramatic style. His arms were crossed over that strong chest, wrapped as it was in black Goblin armor; on the chest piece, she could just make out between the line of his arms, was the face of a snarling Goblin, its two horns curving down to encircle his pectoral muscles and came to a point at the center. The high crest of his collar was the same, the feathery ends of his hair, his pants, his boots, they were all  _ just the same _ ! His proud, haughty scowl peered down at her, as though he had merely deigned to come rather than being summoned by the oldest magic in existence, the magic that rooted mortal to fey.

Him to her.

The space under Sarah's bed, the empty corners of her closet, even the smallest nook in her chest of drawers were usually filled with a mix of brownies and pixies, sprites and fairies, little wisps of magical creatures that took comfort in her notice of them. They had all entirely cleared out. No one would dare remain in the presence of stronger magic – except for Sarah Williams, Champion of the Labyrinth; the one in possession of a power much greater by far, but not a power of magic.

Sarah finally remembered to breathe again, standing in her doorway, taking him all in. She wasn't sure if she thought he would come or not – probably had not been thinking at all. She certainly did not think anything now. If she had, she would not have  _ launched  _ herself at him, her arms wrapping around his strong, firm torso while her green eyes stung with un-shed tears. “I have  _ never  _ been so happy to see you!”

The air left the King's body in a great rush. Sarah might have knocked it out of him, but it was due to surprise, and not by force (though her slender arms wound round his lithe frame tightly, as though clinging to the only solid thing in a sinking world). It had been Jareth's intention to hold onto his cold, aloof air with Sarah, to tilt his beak-like nose in proud and righteously arrogant fashion high into the air. He had planned to flash that cold sneer that so unnerved little mortals – and also fey – and strut about her shabby apartment with shoulders back, black cape dragging against stained carpeting. “ _ What was your name again? Ah, yes, the one who fell in love with Higgle, was it _ ?” He would say this, and those green eyes of hers would flash, and his sharp teeth would be revealed in a winning sneer-

But, as ever, Sarah Williams dashed all his lovely plans to pieces. For one thing, she had changed, almost entirely; oh, not in the important ways. Her hair was still that deep, dark color, so brown it might have even been black, glossy like the light of the moon. The baby fat had left her cheeks so that her face was cut with high, elegant cheek bones, but she still had that tiny button nose that gave her a kind of childish beauty. And her eyes....were still somewhere between emerald and peridot, sage and ivy, a color of green all their own. But the way she carried herself, the way she dressed had changed. Perhaps because it was the mortal New Year, but she wore a silver top of sequins that reflected the low light of the city, and a black skirt cut just above the knee, so much more  _ adult  _ than the girl who ran the Labyrinth. And her knees...were red, as though she'd given herself a friction burn, her hands as well. She leaned precariously on one foot, the other looking like it had been twisted through the strappy heels she wore. She looked a mess, a gorgeous, haunting, haunted mess. Oh, what was the use? He remembered Sarah, of  _ course  _ he remembered Sarah, changed or no. He remembered her each time she talked to one of her silly little friends in her mirror, or pulled them into her world – what, they thought he didn't know? Of  _ course  _ he knew. He knew each time she called to every fey being that flitted across the Aboveground and  _ not to him _ .  _ Not  _ that he was at all embittered about that. 

It was due to his surprise, he therefore surmised, that he wheezed in reply, “The feeling is quite mutual, I assure you...”

She released him, and the Goblin King was glad for it, because he rather disliked being put off his guard so suddenly. Straightening the silk sleeves of his shirt, he examined her with that detached and haughty gaze once again as she stepped back, seeming to examine him just as thoroughly. “J-Jareth.” She saw his eyes flicker when she said his name, but from what emotion she could not tell. It struck her, suddenly, that she had never said his name to him before that moment, and the realization was a bit of a strange one. But then, if ever there was a time to start, now was probably it. “I need your help,” she whispered in the darkness of her bedroom, voice a hoarse murmur she knew he would still hear.

The unreal fey king took a step in, her scratchy, grey carpet crushed beneath the sole of his shiny boot. Without needing so much as a nod from him, Sarah saw her window slide shut behind him with a dull, “ _ thud _ .” Well, it would keep the cold out, at least. “I know.” His voice was almost as soft as hers, but much more steady. The tenor was a smooth one, low and dulcet, and it had lost any of the breathy wheezing she may have heard earlier. “I heard your wishing.” Jareth stopped just in front of her, the edges of his cloak licking at her bare calves, so close she could see the pupils of his eyes very clearly, reflecting the low light of her bedroom. The scent of him wove around her the same way the cape did. “What is it, Sarah.”

Sarah opened her mouth...closed it. Twice more. She was, quite honestly, doing her best to communicate with the ethereal being in her bedroom, but the words just would not come. It was possible she could not say them, lest it make the situation realer than her fragile nerves could take. It was possible she did not want to acknowledge the truth of them. It was equally possible that saying these words – that her family was  _ dead – _ was a powerful thing, and at that moment, Sarah did not feel strong enough for it. Still, she tried, a pale hand hesitantly going out to his dark arm. She noticed, then, that she was trembling like a leaf; Jareth noticed it, too, flicked his eyes up and down her shivering body as she began to shake uncontrollably. “It's...they...” She was struggling, and her un-shed tears seemed to be threatening to spring to her tired green eyes.

The King caught her trembling hand in his, the grey silk of his gloves smooth and soft to the touch, his thumb running over the back of her shivering hand. “What happened?” he repeated, voice low in a way that was somewhat soothing to her fraying mind.

“ _ Toby _ .” Sarah was crying at last, covering her mouth with her free hand to hold back some of the sobs that were overcoming her. With the effort of it, her shoulders began to shake, her thin mascara clinging in dark clumps to her eye lashes. “ _ Dad _ , Karen...th-th-there-” she could barely speak for her sobbing, and Jareth pulled her in closer by her hand, still saying nothing. Her dripping, puffy face was mere inches from his chest; she would have been able to breathe in his spicy scent, but for the fact that the force of her tears had swollen her sinus cavities and she could only gasp for breath in shaky gulps through her mouth. “There was an accident. This car, and – the other driver....they're  _ dead _ .” Swallowing down tears and a bit of mucus from the back of her throat, Sarah coughed hard and turned her face up to her childhood nemesis, green eyes more pleading than they had been even in her father's bedroom the night he'd come to take Toby. “ _ Please _ , Jareth,” she begged, looking for all the world like she might fall to her knees. “You  _ have  _ to do something, you  _ have  _ to-”

“Stop, Sarah.” The woman was surprised into silence by the press of his gloved fingers on her dry, cracking lips. The look in his mismatched eyes was  _ intense _ , far more than anything she had ever expected to see, even more so than the final time they had met and parted. “I am flattered by your renewed belief in my abilities, but what you are about to ask of me is far beyond my purview; I cannot bring others back from the grave, nor can I reanimate the dead. It is a forbidden magic even I would not tamper with.”

Both of Sarah's trembling hands wrapped around his, squeezing so tightly it felt like one of them – most likely her – might break apart at any moment. “There has to be  _ something  _ you can do...” she begged him with wide, red-rimmed eyes. She licked her lips with desperation and promised, “I'd do  _ anything _ -!”

The Goblin King sighed, stepping back slightly to observe her, but not pulling his hand from her desperate grasp. She meant it, he knew. If he told her the prize was to live as his concubine, she'd have stripped herself bare in a heartbeat; if he'd told her he wanted her head to mount above his throne as a lesson to other petulant little girls, she'd have run straight to the kitchen and brought him her largest knife. What on earth was  _ wrong  _ with this grown-up girl that she so thoughtlessly plunged ahead into things she did not want, all for the sake of others? It was a nasty habit that he felt sure would one day get her into trouble.

How lucky she was, Jareth mused, to be asking one of the more  _ generous  _ Lords of the Underground. Not that the silly creature would ever be aware of it.

After a long moment, his smooth voice murmured, “There may be a way to do this thing you ask.” Sarah gave a broken sob of relief and covered his hand in her soft kisses. Jareth's eyebrows furrowed in consternation; did she think him so easily won over? “However, it is not without  _ sacrifice _ .”

“Anything,” she promised, pressing his hand to her swollen cheek. Jareth could feel the heat of her tears beneath his gloved fingers. “I'll give you anything you ask for!”

“As sweet as the temptation is, I'm afraid it's not  _ me  _ you should be offering anything to.”

“...w-what?” Sarah looked around her apartment bedroom, as if searching out the friendly lesser fey that usually were there to explain such matters to her.

Jareth pulled himself from her grasp, beginning to circle around her as if in great study of her form. “Death is not quite the unreasonable fellow people make him out to be – however, once he's made a claim, he will not give it back. He requires a  _ trade _ .”

“A...trade? Someone else's life, you mean?”

“That's generally the case, yes,” the Goblin King nodded, observing her face and watching the different emotions and realizations play out across it and through her eyes.

“Then...for my three family members, does he need...?”

Jareth lightly shook his head, the air catching a few of the long tendrils of his platinum hair. “Not necessarily. If they were all taken in the same accident, it may be counted as one 'event.' Besides, Sarah, you ought to know – not all lives are equal.”

“That's  _ disgusting _ ,” she snapped, turning heated green looks upon him. Many men would have withered under that gaze. Jareth grew like a plant exposed to sunlight, so much so that he was even able to pull his lips over his teeth in an eery, Goblin smile.

“That's Death,” he shrugged, his black mantle settling itself across his shoulders. “You asked me to help, and here is what I can offer you.” In his outstretched palm, a crystal appeared, as soft and smooth as Sarah had remembered them. “I cannot steal your family from Death's dominion, it would not be worth my life nor power to do so;  _ however _ . I  _ can  _ arrange a trade, a 'switch-eroo,' as I believe it is colloquially known. Anyone might do, really, Death isn't as picky as all that. Well,” the Goblin King sighed, his free hand placed thoughtfully to his chin. “I suppose he can afford to be more patient than most – everyone comes to him eventually.”

“You mean...” Sarah's gaze had gone down to the shiny tops of Jareth's black boots, but slowly she pulled her stare up again. “You mean you're asking  _me_ to pick someone? To take my family's place?”

“That  _is_ the long and the short of it, yes,” the more-than-man replied, pressing his hand a little closer to her. “You needn't thank me for my cleverness unless you feel  _particularly_ impressed.”

Sarah did not thank him – in fact, she couldn't even speak. One of her hands had clenched around the white column of her throat, her face blanched in horror at the thought. “I...” she hesitated, wondering what sort of person she could be if she accepted this Devil's Bargain. “I  _couldn't_ .”

“You just told me you'd do  _anything_ ,” Jareth hissed, strange eyes narrowing at her. “Are you truly backing out so quickly? I thought you made of sterner stuff.”

“I am!” Sarah shouted back at him, her free hand balled into a fist at her side. “But...but  _this-_ !”

“-is a deal millions of other people would not hesitate for a moment to accept,” he finished the thought for her, sighing with a shake of his head. “And they would gladly throw  _you_ under the bus if given the opportunity. Really, Sarah, not everyone shares these lofty scruples of yours.”

“That's all the more reason for me to keep them,” she muttered in reply.

“I really did not come all this way after all this time to be lectured about tilting at windmills,” the King snapped tartly, beginning to withdraw his offer. The flash of desperation behind her green eyes made him pause, grin forming again in consideration. “Besides, Sarah. No one said the choice had to be a bad or tough one, or even made at random. There are many ways justice can be served by this.” Jareth drew up close to her, and this time Sarah  _could_ catch whiff of the odor of him, eyes closing automatically: he smelled like ancient magic and manhood; frankincense, leather, coffee,  _stardust_ . She could feel the pulsing heat of his presence behind her, and she almost leaned against him, so weakened by the horrors of her night. Almost as if he could sense her hesitation, the Goblin King lay his gloved hand at her shoulder, his fingers digging gently in, and the other hand came around the other side to hold the bright bubble just at the level of her eyes. “I have a rather genius idea,” he whispered in her ear, so that she could feel his breath against her skin and shuddered. “Let's kill the driver, my love.”

Sarah's shuddering began in earnest, and she stepped backwards, closer into the warm semi-circle of his arms. “The driver...?” She repeated it numbly, mindlessly.

“And why not? It's his fault, isn't it, it's his selfishness and carelessness that allowed this to happen. That stupid man – so eager to drown himself in his hedonistic pursuits, so  _self-absorbed_ . Never stopping to think what he might do for even a moment...”

“Yes...” Sarah's eyes were wide in the dark. Jareth could not quite see them, behind her as he was, but he knew what look she might wear, knew the glitter that would lie within those deliciously green eyes, and he could not stop the grin that spread across his sharp features. In thirteen years, Sarah had grown up to  _fine_ womanhood, but that meant she had lost a little of that innocent veneer she'd worn the last time they had met. The necessity of life had made her just a little colder, just a little more cynical. She could see the wisdom in this deal where her fifteen year old self would have only found revulsion. And if this wasn't justice, wasn't it at least vengeance? That stupid slime of a man had taken  _everything_ from her, had killed an innocent boy in the prime of his youth. What right had this stranger to continue living where Toby and his family had not?

Jareth twisted the crystal between his fingers in front of her, watching as focus returned to her green eyes and she stared into its shimmering depths. “I'll reorder time for you...” he whispered, feeling the heat of her body close to him. He took a step forward so that they barely touched, and she felt liquid next to him, like they were a perfect fit – and they  _were_ . She was so deliciously hot, and frightfully cold; a queen of vengeance and justice and fury. What a perfect consort she could make in this kind of state, someone to rule in the Underground with a fist of cold iron. Jareth ran his other hand from her shoulder down her arm, gently playing with her fingers before settling his gloved hand at the bend of her waist. “I shall make it  _terrible_ – for how could I not, when a foolish mortal man brings tears to those lovely eyes, hm?”

“ _Yes_ !” she was gasping for breath, as though his words alone were a kind of painful ecstasy, and she raised her delicate fingers to touch the bauble. “Jareth...”

“I'm here...” His voice was in her ear. He noticed that the pair had begun to sway slightly on unsteady feet, he and her both, as though they had consumed the champagne that had long since gone hot on her counter top, or an unearthly tune was playing through her bedroom. “Just say the Right Words, and I will give it  _all_ to you...”

Sarah's slim fingers wrapped around the glassy bubble, her red lips parted, and  _heat_ – fiery, intense, almost painful heat – ran straight up her arm, settled in her ulna with an aching, pulsing thrum, as though she had just hit her elbow in the precise way to make her arm go agonizingly numb. With a shaky gasp of breath, she could no longer see the darkness of her apartment bedroom, but a stark, white room, cold linoleum tiles, peeling plaster walls. It smelled like formaldehyde, so strongly she thought she might gag, and rows of worn folding chairs were lined up like cheap pews. There was a smattering of people in the cheap hall, mainly dressed in black, some with stained white shirts and dark ties. A thin, oak casket rested on a dais draped in white oil cloth, stained with dripping wax from sputtering candles. A boy sat at the front of all this, hands wrapped around a red plastic cup with knock-off lemonade, while those around him murmured and mixed quietly around a folding table covered in cheap relishes. Sarah could see, though she wasn't entirely sure how, what a sad and drawn face the little boy wore, looking down into the thin, oily sheen of his lemon-ish drink. This was more potent than any of the fey things she had seen in the last thirteen years, this was a startling vision that threatened to make her faint with its intensity of sounds and colors and smells and stark  _awfulness_ . 

She didn't feel like she was physically there, but none the less, she raised her hand to the boy, wanting so badly to touch him, to give him some comfort. It felt as though her fingers should have made contact with his own where they rested around the cup, though she could not see them connecting, and in that moment she felt more white, hot pain snake up her arm. The boy had lost his father: it was true he'd never been much of a parent, had missed many birthday parties and baseball games, called his mother nasty names and was always,  _always_ late with child support – but that didn't mean the boy had wanted him dead. For how could he ever make up for all his failings and be a proper father to his son if he wasn't  _there_ ? Tears were springing to Sarah's eyes, she was choking on them, and she felt as though she were falling back, struggling – struggling to get away from this horrible, cold place with its awful, embalming fluid perfumes and its stark heartlessness. 

“N- _No_ !” Sarah wasn't sure if she had shrieked wildly or barely managed a hoarse whisper, but she found herself in the dark of the apartment again, her hand off the crystal but throbbing slightly where she had touched it. She was not standing upright, instead she was leaning back against the firm, armored chest of the Goblin King, both his lean arms wrapped around her. And she was glad for it. “No...” Definitely a whisper now, Sarah tilted her pale, haunting face so that she could just meet the fey king eye to eye. There were no tears in her green eyes, but they were so empty, so eternally sad, that there was no mistaking the intent there. “I  _can't_ ,” she told him, her voice just barely audible in the dark of the night. The ticking of her bedroom clock was far louder than she was, and she glanced surreptitiously at it; eleven fifty-eight. 

Jareth stared down at her, thin mouth set, looking entirely like the Goblin King she'd always known – cold, aloof, without pity. “And  _what_ ?” he hissed to her, his harsh, vaguely-minty breath ghosting across the smooth skin of her pale forehead. “You'll let your brother  _die_ to save the life of a wretch who never thought of another person  _once_ in his entire selfish life?”

Sarah shook her head, pulling herself upright and just out of the circle of his arms, still unsteady. “No.”

...There was a moment of comprehension. The Goblin King's eyes narrowed to match his thin mouth. “Sarah...” he warned, not at all pleased.

She said it anyway: “I'll do it. I'll take their place in the car.”

Jareth hissed again, banishing the crystal with a flick of his wrist. His pale eyes bore a look of irritation, disappointment, maybe even anger as he stared from where his magic had been conjured and back to her. “You and your damned stubborn, self-sacrificing, noble  _idiocy_ .”

Sarah knew she was trembling head to foot, but still found her lips tugging in a shaking smile. “Thanks...”

“Reconsider.” It was a demand, not a request.

God, she was afraid. She wanted to listen to him, she  _wanted –_ for just a half a moment – for him to have power over her and refuse her this request. Sarah Williams didn't want to die. She was absolutely terrified. But how could she live, not saving her family, or dooming another in their place? It would have been more terrible than the worst damnation. Biting her lower lip, she shook her head, dark hair gently wafting with the movement. “I can't...”

“Very well...” Without warning, Jareth seized her by the wrist and dragged her against the hard line of his body. Sarah gasped, maybe even squeaked a little, looking up into his unreal eyes. She could not even  _begin_ to guess the emotions that played there, and therefore did not even try. “There is no time for goodbyes.”

She nodded; that made sense. “I know.”

“I will do what I can to make this...painless.” Suddenly, he was holding her face in those warm, gloved hands, and a peculiar, familiar flash of  _something_ flickered across his gaze. Sarah's lips parted in surprised breathlessness, just watching him.

“ _Ten, nine, eight_ -” She could hear the rhythmic chanting of her neighbors through the walls of her apartment, ready to ring in the dying of another year. 

The dying of Miss Sarah Williams.

Jareth kissed her before she could say another word; Sarah wasn't really surprised, though it was not something she had expected. He was far more tender than she would have guessed, his lips pressed softly and insistently against her own. Sarah kissed him back without hesitation, hands clinging tightly to his strong arms, wanting desperately to hang on to this one last, final, clear moment of  _life_ , of being alive. Oh God, freeze time, don't let it end-

“ _Three, two, one-_ ” The New Year's kiss she'd been waiting for, it seemed, all her life, to finally have it here at the end. “- _Happy New Year_ !”

Bells, whistles, fireworks – but that fell into the background as the gong of an unseen clock, one she certainly did not own, overcame all competing noise to toll the hours; one, two, twelve, and then one more. The thirteenth chime. It felt like the world was melting beneath her feet, and she wanted to hold on to Jareth, beg in his mouth for him to stay with her, she was brave but  _so scared_ -

She was standing in her living room, by her black couch; Sarah nearly fell over with a sudden burst of vertigo. Strange, she had never been a sufferer before. “Oh God...” Her open hand went to her throbbing head, then down to her tingling lips. Something had just happened, something she wanted so badly to remember...

“Sarah?” There was a tinny, electric voice in her ear, and she realized she'd been holding the phone. Karen on the other end. “Sarah, are you alright?”

“I'm fine, just a dizzy spell.” The young actress shook her head a little, trying to clear it. What was she doing? Oh, finishing getting ready to go home for her parents' little New Year's Eve party, of course! She looked around briefly, expecting decorations and tinsel and – but why would there be? She wasn't hosting any kind of party, of course her apartment would be draped in its stark normalcy.

“Do you want to stay home?”

“And disappoint Toby?” she replied, pulling on her pair of strappy heels, smoothing out the wrinkles in her black skirt and trying to sort through her spinning mind. “Never! I've got the wine in a bag with an ice pack, I'll be there within an hour.”

“Drive safely,” Karen was admonishing in her perpetually mothering tone. “I don't think there's any ice on the major roadways, but you know how people drive on a holiday.”

“I'll be fine!” she promised with a light-hearted laugh she didn't  _quite_ feel. Everything was fine, surely, but then why did she have this sense of foreboding niggling in the back of her mind. Why were the pixies hanging on her pantry door staring at her like that? “See you soon.”

“Yes, love you.”

“Love you, too.” It was said with the automatic assurance of perfect comfort, and without a worry, Sarah pulled her bag onto her shoulder and rushed out her door. Eight thirty. Traffic probably would be fairly light to Upper Nyack, as most revelers would be heading  _toward_ the city, not away from it. Why was she having such a hard time smiling when she slid into the worn seat of her old car?  _Something I'm supposed to remember_ ... Well, no time to worry, she had to see Toby. Without hesitation, she pulled from her apartment's parking garage and out to the open roadway. Snow still clung to gutters, icicles hung from street signs. The glittering lights of Manhattan gave way to the faded street lights and neon signs of the turnpike as she sped for her childhood home.  _Something...something_ ...Sarah pushed it from her mind, turned on the radio, flipped through the channels and the static and found there was no music that fit her current mood. She'd been about to fuss with her tape deck at the next red light when a horrible, squealing sound of brakes and tires caught her attention: a car, a swerving maniac of a car, veering wildly out of control, crossing the center lane, coming closer, closer,  _too close_ -! She thought she screamed, maybe, once-

Heard the crunch of metal, the ripping sound of shattering glass, the bruising feeling of her seat belt snapping under the pressure-

She felt, saw, heard, tasted, smelled-

Nothing else.

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

* * *

 

 

_Later on, if it turns to chaos,_

_A hurricane coming all around us_

_See the crack, pull it back from the window_

_You stay low_

_Say when_

  * “Say When,” The Fray




 

* * *

 

 

Sarah felt sure her bed had never been so comfortable. Everything felt plush and soft and be-feathered, the sheets were smooth and clean with the smell of spices, and it was  _ so warm _ . Keeping her eyes closed, she stretched languorously beneath the blankets, frowning slightly at the pounding of her head. Why...? Oh, it was New Year's Day. She didn't remember drinking that much, but-

Eyes still closed, Sarah rolled gently to her side, her right arm pillowed beneath her, still sighing contentedly. She had an audition on Tuesday. Alright, she'd get up, eat a little toast, take a hot shower; she'd call her accompanist and start practicing “On the Steps of the Palace.” She was good at playing Cinderella, it usually got her parts. As for the monologue, Antigone, or something more modern? She was supposed to have lunch with her agent, call her mother-

“I know you're awake.”

Sarah's green eyes shot open: a voice, a  _ man's  _ voice,  _ the man's  _ voice – in her bedroom? With a gasp, she sat straight up, pulling the burgundy sheet up with her, and realized she was most definitely  _ not  _ in her bedroom, let alone her bed: where the white walls of her apartment bedroom were made of thin plaster, this palatial master suite was made from hewn stone. Instead of her drab, stained grey carpet, the ebony floor was covered in a rich tapestry of colors in woven rugs that outdid anything her mother had ever shown her at Sak's. There were no storm windows; there were no glass panes of any kind, instead the open half-circle cut into the fortress walls were covered by heavy silk panels that, surprisingly, kept out the winter cold. And it  _ was  _ cold, or would have been, had there not been a massive fire crackling merrily away in its hearth on the other side of the room – in height, the fireplace outdid Sarah by at least a foot, maybe more. She would have taken in the rich furnishings, the gauzy canopy of the four-poster bed she was sitting in, the tapestries on the wall that depicted scenes of battle and of glory, and most of all she would have taken in the Goblin King (who sat watching her with one leg thrown over the arm of an overstuffed lounge chair, affecting a pose of indolence, but his true feelings were betrayed by the intensity of the look in his eyes), but for the fact that nearly as soon as her emerald eyes were open, a massive pounding started in her skull. Sarah cried out weakly, closing her eyes tightly again and laying her cool fingers to her temple. 

Jareth stood from his chair and crossed to her in the bed (his bed, she felt sure), leaning over her but not touching her. “I feel like I got hit by a truck,” she mewled, still cradling her aching brain.

With a soft chuckle and smirk, he brought his gloved fingers to her temples, working in soothing motions. “Close enough,” he murmured in reply, and Sarah could not restrain a sigh as a cool sort of magic dripped from his hands and seemed to make their way into her head, softening the pain until it was almost non-existent. “You were out for quite some time.”

“Was I?” If he'd told her she  _ had  _ been drinking too much on New Year's Eve, at that moment, Sarah would have believed him, for her mind felt like it walked in a fog and nothing made sense. “Why...I was...” Just then, Sarah gasped again, pulling her head (reluctantly) from his fingers and bolting out of the bed on unsteady legs. “Am I dead!”

“Sarah,” his tone held a mild annoyance that was almost paternal. “Get back in bed.”

“Oh  _ shit _ ,” she began to shake further, her hands wringing around themselves. “This is hell, isn't it, I'm in-” The young woman paused and looked down at herself: she most certainly had  _ not  _ gone either to bed or gotten into her car dressed like  _ this _ . It was a satin nightgown, white, ending just at the tops of her thighs and all hemmed in with soft, pink velvet. The bodice was square cut and showed off the swell of her breast in what she would have considered a very nice fashion if she weren't  _ mortified.  _ “Did you-” she started, holding down the gown with one hand and using the other to point an accusing finger at the Goblin King.

Jareth raised his lip in a none-too-pleased sneer. “Rest assured,  _ Sarah _ ,” he drawled, turning his gaze from her into the crackling fire. “When  _ I  _ divest women of their clothing, I make sure they're conscious for it.” With another of his trademark smirks, he turned to look at her again – and oh yes, he was  _ definitely  _ making a careful study of it, with her looking like  _ that _ . He wiggled the fingers of one of his gloved hands at her and purred, “Magic, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Sarah muttered, sinking back to the edge of the massive bed (it put king sized beds to shame) and refusing to stop glaring at him. “I'll just bet you have undressing magic you whip out at the proper moments.”

“Would you like a demonstration?”

“ _ No _ ! Jareth...w-what's going on?” she stammered a little now, eyes going tight with her nerves, the ghost of her headache returning. “I thought...that is, you said you would...”

“Ah, ah, ah, my love...” he sighed lightly, crossing to her at the bed and using his thumb and forefinger to tweak her chin. “Someone hasn't been reading their Coleridge.”

Sarah paused, stretching her mind back to her college literature courses, pale brow furrowed. “Um...'In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ a stately pleasure-dome decree?'”

The Goblin King paused, blinking his strange eyes for a moment. “Oh,” he seemed to puzzle out. “It wasn't the passage I had in mind, but I  _ do  _ see how it would fit – at least in my bedroom.”

Sarah wrinkled her nose at him and at last pulled her chin free of his grip. “Please talk sense.”

Jareth waved a dismissive hand at her, turning away from the bed and crossing to one of his many shelves, lined with the spines of beautiful, ancient, multi-colored texts. He observed them for a moment, two fingers to his chin and humming lightly to himself before he at last softly cried, “Ah ha!” and plucked a book from its brothers. He seemed to open it quite at random, never even looking at the pages, and put it in Sarah's lap with little more than a, “Here.”

Young Miss Williams looked down, utterly confused and sure she could feel her headache returning. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” Strange choice for Goblin reading, but she didn't even want to  _ begin  _ to think about why British poets were being read in the Underground. “Alright, I'm game,” she muttered more to herself than to her host, perusing the page in front of her. Right, ghost ship, Death and Life-In-Death, playing dice over the life of the mariner... “I'm glad to hear you appreciate the classics, Jareth,” Sarah sighed, looking up but not closing the book. “But this really isn't all that edifying.”

“Isn't it?” She was not surprised to find he had begun to twist two crystals in his palm while she read, but she  _ was  _ a bit surprised when he rolled them gently toward her. As soon as the glittering globes touched the coverlet, they changed their shape in the blinking of an eye, taking on the form of...dice? Well, one was definitely the standard six-sided die she was used to seeing, the other seemed an impossible combination of shapes and numbers, but she picked them both up in her soft palm.

They were a bit...warm to the touch. It seemed Jareth was going to continue to spin riddles around her, until Sarah had the foresight to take up the regular die between her thumb and forefinger – where it swayed tellingly. “Jareth...this die is  _ weighted _ .”

“As smart as she is pretty,” the Goblin King purred, pulling up a chair to sit across from where she was on his bed. “Unfortunately, Death is such a trusting fellow, he never does check when I bring the dice. You'd think he'd learn after so many millenia.”

Sarah found herself still confused, but that quickly gave way to pure mortification, an angry blush coloring her cheeks. “You played  _ dice  _ for my immortal soul?”

“You don't need to look so betrayed. I won, didn't I?” And he snickered to himself, which was not something Sarah had ever seen him do before, but the gesture suited him in an intimate way. “'The game is done! I've won! I've won!' Not the prettiest of the lines, but it  _ is  _ appropriate, isn't it?”

Without hesitation, Sarah hurled the pair of dice straight at his sniggering head. Jareth caught them smoothly in his gloved hand, never taking his eyes from hers. “What if you lost, you great ass!”

He was all seriousness now, an intensity in his blue-and-amber eyes that had not been there before, or leastwise had been carefully hidden. “I would not have lost.”

“You don't know that-” She began to turn on the bed to get away from him, but before she could, Jareth had seized her chin; not hard, but holding, and she felt she could not look away from his intense stare.

“Sarah.” Was it an order, a question, a comfort, the way he said her name? It was all, it was nothing, it was much more, and she found herself looking into his cut glass face and unable to turn away. “I would  _ not  _ have lost. Not you. Not ever. Not even Death would be able to stop me, I would turn back the hands of time and wrest you from his grip by force, but I would  _ not  _ have lost you.”

“W-well...” Her voice shook, but Sarah felt gratified to know her hands were at least steady, the first time in an age, it seemed. “...isn't there a  _ punishment  _ for cheating Death? It doesn't seem like he'd take that too kindly.”

“Oh, nonsense.” Jareth easily broke the intensity of the moment, releasing her face from his hands and standing, letting the dice fall to the floor and disappear in a cloud of vapor. “People cheat Death all the time, Sarah, surely you've heard that turn of phrase.”

“I didn't think it was generally used  _ literally _ .”

“Well, mortal beings are so terrified of him, they never think to try, do they? No, poor fellow is such a sport and a gentleman, it happens all the time and he just lets it. I suppose I ought to send him something as a peace offering...maybe a fruit basket.” Sarah flopped back on the bed with an aggravated sigh; okay, so she wasn't dead – sorta – but that didn't mean she wasn't in hell. An insane version of hell populated by her fondest nightmares. In a quiet movement, the Goblin King leaned over her on the bed, so that his corn silk hair tickled her cheeks as he grinned down at her with pointed teeth. “Feel free to thank me effusively at any moment.”

“Jareth,” she asked, pushing his hair behind his pointed ears so it would stop tickling her. “What happens now? Can I ever die?”

“No. I've won your soul for the Goblin Kingdom, Death forfeitted his hold on you.” Almost as if he was afraid of what she might ask him next, he pressed on, “And no going back to the mortal realm.” It was almost a snarl, but it belied the quiet desperation in his voice.

“I expected that,” Sarah sighed, sitting up, so that he stepped back to maintain a respectful – albeit small – distance. “Everyone in the Aboveground thinks I'm dead, I can't just show up and then make a living making bets in bars that I won't die...”

“...well, that's quite the reasonable answer, coming from you.”

“You do know what to say to a lady in her darkest hour.”

“I thank you.”

“But...what am I going to  _ do  _ here?”

There was not a moment of hesitation on his part; with a quick movement, he conjured a crystal and held it to her, which became a small, black, velvet box in his palm. Sarah didn't need to open it, even though she'd never been offered such a thing in her (now painfully short) life, she knew exactly what it was. “You could always become my Queen.”

A silence stretched on between them that was only lessened by the crackling of the fire in its hearth. At last, Sarah sighed, brushing her hair from her eyes. “It's nice of you to ask, but I am really in  _ no  _ kind of position to be getting engaged right now.”

Jareth scowled, but he must have thought the answer a fair one, because he didn't seem terribly put out, dismissing the magic gift with a short wave of his hand. “Then in the meantime, I suggest you rest up. You were taxed mentally, emotionally and physically, and it may take you some time to recover.”

He was crossing to the door to leave. “Wait, but where will I stay?”

“Here.” He pointed to the floor of his bedroom and opened the heavy wooden door. “And don't leave the room. I will return later to check on you.” It seemed he would leave right then, turning his back to her, but he paused, facing her with that usual twinkle in his strange eyes. “And Sarah?”

“...yeah?”

“Do have sweet dreams, my precious thing – preferably of me.” And he left.

Sarah flopped back on the bed, her dark hair creating a fanned halo on the soft pillow. He could be mercurial and cold, playing dice for her very life one minute and quoting 19 th century British poetry the next. She would have felt exhausted even without her body being pulled from the wreckage of a car.

 

* * *

 

 

Most of the day – at least, she thought it was day – Sarah slept. Sometimes, she cried, thinking of her father and mother, thinking of Karen and Jeremy, thinking of all her friends in the theater. She thought about her agent, her manager, her accompanist, her high school math teacher who bumped her grade up to a B- when it was clear that she really was  _ trying  _ to understand algorithms. Most of all, she thought about Toby, the person who had started her on this grand adventure in the first place. Toby called her at least twice a week, sometimes just to talk, sometimes for advice. It was his first year in high school: he needed to complain about how much harder everything was, how unfair his teachers were (and while Sarah would scold anyone else for saying something was unfair, she never scolded Toby), or just ask for advice on girls. He needed a lot of advice for that particular teenage problem. She was going to miss her apartment that never had enough hot water, except in the middle of a New York summer; she was going to miss flipping through the Times to see if Ben Brantley had deigned to visit one of her shows, and if he'd mentioned her performance; but most of all, she was going to miss Toby. Birthday parties with Toby, getting through painfully boring family reunions with Toby, just sharing a quiet moment with Toby.

Even if she wasn't dead, she felt rather dead, laying in Jareth's bed, sprawled out because she didn't know how else to be. The fire had grown low, and the room was mainly dark, and it was then that the heavy, ornate wooden door creaked open, and a tray with a bowl seemed to levitate about three feet in the air in her direction.

For this, Sarah rolled over, and quickly realized that much less than magic was at work here; it wasn't levitating, it was being carried on the head of a small, scruffy goblin. A silver platter with a bowl of some sort of liquid steaming away, a lump of what she assumed to be brown bread, and a small pot of something on the side. “Lady?” the goblin whispered in its thin, raspy voice, and Sarah sat up a little, intrigued; she'd never spent much time with the goblins, she'd never wanted to before.

“I'm awake,” she said, beating the pillows into a form suitable as a chair, smoothing out the sheets on the bed.

“You eat soup now?” It was somewhere between a statement and a question, and the little thing struggled to push the tray onto the bed without spilling a drop of the precious broth. Sarah helped obligingly, setting the platter on her lap and watching the little goblin watch her. It was a thin, broth-y soup, with some sort of green herbs floating away on the pale golden surface. It steamed with heat and smelled  _ wonderful _ . She had been right about the brown bread, and the small, earthenware pot turned out to be grainy mustard. She wasn't entirely sure what to do with that, so she just left it be, bending to the soup. Its heat seemed to seep into her very bones, and she gave a relieved, sighing purr. The goblin perked up his long ears. “Soup good?”

“It is. Did you make this?”

He wrinkled his long nose and shook his head. “No, Wog no allowed make soup.”

“Wog? Is that your name?” He nodded vigorously, his wispy hairs and long ears bobbing up and down with the motion. After a moment, Sarah patted a place beside her in the huge bed. “Do you want to sit with me?”

Its yellowy eyes widened in the dark of the bedroom, clearly tempted, but the little creature known as Wog looked about furtively. “King no like goblins on bed.”

“Okay, but the King's not here.”

“He find out.”

“I'll tell him I asked you to sit with me. How mad can he possibly be?”

“...Lady no let King bog Wog?”

Sarah smiled a little, her pale lips pulling slightly at the corners. “No, King no bog Wog.” With a squeaking sort of glee, Wog seized the fine, woven cover with his long, knobby fingers and hauled himself up onto the King's bed, settling very close to Sarah and seeming as content as an otherworldly cat. He was cute in an ugly sort of way, a little like a bulldog, and he smelled vaguely of chickens – which wasn't a pleasant odor, but Wog wore it well, and he watched every single sip of soup that Sarah took; not out of hunger, but out of a clear desire to see her fed and ensure his task was completed. “So, Wog,” she asked him as she ripped off a hunk of the dark bread. “Why aren't you allowed to make soup?”

“Wog no allowed in kitchens.”

“Why not?”

Small, scrawny Wog sighed, turning his yellow eyes on Sarah with a look that said, “ _ You poor, simple child, you really don't know anything, do you? _ ” “Two kinds of goblins,” Wog ever so patiently explained, ticking off the different races on his long, thin fingers. “Smart goblins, dumb goblins. Smart kind work in kitchen, so no one get sick on bad food. Wog dumb.” His chest puffed with pride even as Sarah's brow furrowed.

“Wog, don't say that about yourself.”

His very big eyes became a little softer now, seeming quite upset at this order. “But Wog  _ is  _ dumb...”

“Do you  _ like  _ calling yourself that?” Wog shook his head enthusiastically. Sarah sighed. “Okay, whatever...” When it was clear she was done eating, Wog wiggled himself off the bed, taking hold of the tray and re-balancing it on his bumpy little head. “Um, Wog?” Sarah asked him, and the small, fairytale creature paused, turning to look up at the woman. “Where's Jare- I mean, the Goblin King.”

“King in throne room.”

“What's he doing?”

“...sitting!” Wog seemed very pleased with this answer, but he did not nod his head lest he drop the items on the tray.

“Is he coming back? I'd hate to kick him out of his room...”

“King come back when time go sleepy.” The little creature's eyes darted this way and that, and he leaned in toward Sarah, who leaned down to hear him as he whispered conspiratorially. “King no make music, smart goblin say he  _ worried _ .”

“Worried?” Sarah quirked one of her eyebrows. It was not an emotion she would have ascribed to the Goblin King. “What's he got to be worried about?”

Wog blinked at her. “Lady!”

“Me?”

“Lady get mad again, break castle?”

“ _ No _ ,” she huffed, pulling herself back up a little. “And it wasn't intentional the first time. Is  _ that  _ what he's worried about?”

Wog shook his head. “No. What Wog worried about.”

“Well, no castle breaking.”

“What about Goblin City?”

Sarah pretended to consider that, and smiled a little when Wog's eyes went wider. “Alright, no breaking the Goblin City either.”

“Lady promise?”

“Lady promise.”

Wog sighed in relief, letting his shoulders sag a little. Thus assured, he seemed willing to divulge more secrets. “Smart goblin say King worried Lady no like him. Why you no like King, Lady? He good King, sing good songs, let us drink lots of ale-”

“Woah, back up, what now?”

“...you hate King?”

She would have been willing to go back to the topic of Jareth singing to a mess of rowdy goblins, but the other subject seemed just as important. “Does he think I hate him?” Wog nodded. “...I don't.” It was as much a surprise to Sarah as it would have been to the King, she felt sure, and she flopped back on the bed with a sigh. “No more questions right now, Wog, my head's hurting again.” Wog nodded at her and did not speak another word, slipping so quietly out the bedroom door she almost didn't hear him.

...huh. She didn't hate Jareth. There was a time she had, she was sure, or did, and it was all  _ well  _ deserved, but this time he'd...well, he'd played remarkably fair with her, which was a bit of a shocker. She asked him to reorder time, he had. She asked to take her family's place in Death's clutches, he'd arranged it. He even had cheated Death to save her, or at least sort of save her. Okay, that meant she was more or less in his debt (in his power, she glumly noted), but it was far past worth being angry about such things. Really, would she rather have just been dead than in Jareth's bedroom? Sarah shuddered; definitely not. She'd grown up in thirteen years, she wasn't as stubborn and prideful as all that. Now, there was going to be a price for all this, ahem, “generosity,” on his part, but Sarah had said she'd do anything, and she'd meant it. And he wasn't been lubricious or pushy: he left her alone, in his own bedroom, and sent her soup. If his behavior wasn't  _ perfect  _ earlier, it was still remarkably genteel for a Goblin King. There were way worse ways this thing could have gone, she thought to herself, staring up at the darkly colored canopy that hung over the bed. This time, at the very least, Jareth really  _ had  _ only done what she'd asked him to do.

There was, of course, the question of  _ why _ , but Sarah was twenty eight, she'd lived as an adult in the world for some time now. If he continued to be as non-forceful as he had so far, well, she wouldn't really lose anything by catering to his whims, at least for a little while.  _ Not  _ that she liked paying people off in sex, and she certainly wasn't about to start making a habit out of it, but-

“Oh, to hell with it.” Sarah sighed, dropping one of her arms over her tired eyes. She was a woman, she knew she found Jareth entirely far too sexy. She was big enough to admit it. She was in no kind of mood to just roll into bed with him (well, more than she already had, in his bed as she was), but she'd have been lying to everyone – including herself – if she claimed the idea filled her with revulsion. It did not.

But having said that, nor did it light her insides on fire and make her ache and squirm for a demon lover. Sarah could not have been aroused in her current state if the Goblin King had begun a strip tease next to a chocolate fountain, with roses in his teeth and “Stairway to Heaven,” playing in the background. She was emotionally deadened, and her body followed suit. In a way, Sarah was still mourning her family, since it felt too strange to mourn herself. Besides, they might as well have been dead, for all she could reach out to them. The knowledge that they weren't, that  _ she  _ had saved them, was some comfort, but it was bitter and cold at best. The soup seemed to have given her a little energy, for she pulled herself from the bed. She also found she was far too alert to simply fall back asleep, no matter how dead inside she was.

“Come on, Williams,” she sighed to herself, slipping out of the massive bed to the smooth, dark wood of the floor, which she was surprised to find was warm under her bare feet. “You're in a fairytale castle and the guest of a king, even if that king is Jareth. Things could be better, but you might as well make the most of it.” Allowing the spirit of adventure to distract her even that much from her fully understandable malaise, she began to pad softly about the master suite.

Sarah tested the door she'd seen both Jareth and Wog leave through, and was relieved to note it was unlocked. If Jareth meant to keep her here, at least he wasn't stupid enough to rile her by leaving her no choice. With this in mind, she opened the heavy cedar door, and peered into a dark hallway, save for the sputtering of a few torches on the wall and populated only by the occasional, silvery cobweb. There was no one that would stop her if she chose to leave. However...Sarah shut the door again. There were a lot of reasons not to leave the bedroom right now. For one thing, it was taking all her mental fortitude to keep herself together in this room, its quiet luxuriance becoming slowly comforting. Given too much stimulation to roam the castle, she knew herself well enough to know she'd be exhausted and back to focusing on Toby and her family and being miserable. Healing should be done in little steps, if it was to be done at all. For another thing, she was still wearing the mysterious white night slip from before, and if she was going to go marching around a bunch of goblins (and their King), she'd prefer to do so...more fully dressed.

Rather than going over the laundry lists of pros versus cons vis a vis leaving the bedroom, Sarah bent her attention to investigating the rest of the master suite; after all, there were other doors she had yet to open. The first she tried was situated on the far wall opposite the bedroom door, the one she'd seen Jareth go into last night to change. It yielded easily to her tug, and a small, dark room greeted her. After fumbling with one of the candles on a side table, she carefully stepped inside.

A closet. A giant, walk-in closet. For heaven's sakes, Jareth's  _ closet  _ was as big as her entire apartment bedroom. It stood to reason, she mused to herself with an audible sigh, blowing away a lock of her dark hair – the man's vanity was  _ enormous _ . For one thing, it was obscene for a man to own that many pairs of shoes; mostly they were boots, but the very occasional dress shoe could be found among them. Riding boots, rubber boots, military boots, more boots than she even knew how to describe. They came in a dark rainbow of colors, from deepest black to pale and creamy white, lingering mainly on the shady end of the spectrum with smokey greys and rich browns. Another wall was devoted to his silk shirts, almost all deeply cut in the front with lace cuffs, and again, mostly black through white with the standard shade variations. She was pleased to note, however, that occasional striking colors would pop out among them; a crimson red or a cerulean blue. Sometimes a turquoise, sometimes a royal purple. Sarah found herself lingering on some shirts and thinking how they might bring out the color of his strange eyes before she was able to awaken herself from such stupidity. The man preened worse than a peacock...time to investigate the pants. She was not at all surprised to find they were mainly those incredibly tight, form fitting breeches, cut so snug that he didn't seem to require any belt for any of his trousers. Very rarely, something a little less...revealing would be found, something closer to a slack, but mainly it was all excessively tight breeches. Set into one wall was a tiny cupboard all its own, and this was revealed to contain a wide variety of mainly white, lacy cravats and ties and jabots, though sometimes a tie she might have been able to find at a fifth avenue boutique made an appearance. She was strangely gratified to see there was really no jewelry in these velvet-lined drawers, not even very many tie-tacks or cufflinks. It was an odd thing to take comfort in, given how Jareth fed his passion for fashion in so many other ways, but she always thought it was a good study of character to see what a man denied himself as well as what he indulged in. In fact, the shiniest things she could find there were a few golden pocket watches – one had the face of a goblin, like his armor from the other night, another had the wide, peering eyes of an owl that were inlaid with precious gems that matched his own eyes. Flipping the watches open, she snorted with no trace of surprise to see the hours went to thirteen.

Sarah stumbled out of the closet and took a deep breath; she felt a little like she'd just come back from a trip to a perverse Narnia. Enough prying into her host's personal affects anyway – she spied another door kitty-corner to this one, and made straight for it, an odd kind of energy flowing through to her fingers, if only because she was an another adventure, albeit a small one.

This door opened to...an antechamber of sorts? A boudoir? Mirrors lined almost every wall, and one stood on hinges with three sides so one could get a good view of anything that needed to be studied. A vanity was lined with subtly glowing crystals, and on the smooth surface sat an array of different tools and props: Sarah caught sight of a palette of cosmetics, and recognized the shades as those she'd seen round Jareth's eyes and nose in the brief occasions they had clashed in the past. The didn't seem well used, though, and the brushes nearby were all well-maintained and clean. Next to them on the startlingly organized vanity were an array of small, crystal vials, and Sarah carefully removed the droppers of each one and took a curious whiff: every bottle but the last were colognes of strange, masculine scents, yet the vials were all very nearly full. Like the makeup, it seemed a little-used enhancement to Jareth's already present, preternatural beauty and seductive power. That last mentioned bottle, however, was different. It smelled of wild violets and fresh, spring rain, and Sarah had the oddest feeling that it had been placed there....for her.

She tried to dismiss the feeling, but found it would not leave her. It wasn't particularly a bothersome thought, but it was a little unsettling, and so if she couldn't banish it, she would simply ignore it, and she focused her attention on the rest of the boudoir. Yet another door stood before her, and this, she was unsurprised to note, led into a glorious, marble-lined bathroom. It was all white but for the smokey veins that wove through the marble, and Sarah found herself staring at the floor and walls, looking for seams in the cut stone and finding none, as if this room had been hollowed out from a house-sized piece of marble. White, thick and fluffy towels sat in piles on stones that were warm to the touch, a small dish of heated coals sat in one corner, waiting for water to create a sudden sauna. In one corner, a miniature waterfall poured in a gentle rain into a small basin, the water always cycling fresh. But what dominated this room was what lay waiting in its center, a perfectly round, impossibly wide and deep tub.

Sarah walked around it, mesmerized. It was as wide across as she was tall, and it seemed that at its deepest point it would have been able to reach her sternum. She thought about what it might look like filled with shimmering, warm water, and the corners of her lips tugged in a smile: like a crystal, of course, like a great floating bubble all its own. The edges of the tub were lined with yet more crystal vials, and she smelled them experimentally. These ones were masculine as well; a bath wash that smelled like cedar, a shampoo that smelled of coffee. One creamy concoction she determined was a kind of conditioner smelled like smoke, and a viscous liquid she couldn't even begin to guess at was a mix of fig and chocolate. She perused the bottles further and found one the color and scent of lavender...and smiled

“Oh, to hell with it. I'm taking a bath.” No sooner had the words left her lips, but the taps of the tub turned on of their own accord and began rapidly filling the massive tub. Sarah squeaked and almost fell backwards, but she was able to steady herself, reminding in a quiet way, “Nothing too freaky, just disembodied magic. It probably can't hurt me.” Cautiously, she ran her cold fingers under the water, and winced a little. “Um...just a tiny bit cooler, please?” The water obliged, and she licked her dry mouth, instantly fascinated. “Stop – please.” The water stopped, the tub seeming to wait for further orders. Sarah paused, studied the tub, and shrugged again. “Please continue.” It did so until the water just reached within an inch of the rim. Sarah did not hesitate to wiggle out of the satin slip. It was true she had nothing else to wear, but at this point, it could hardly matter. It didn't cover her so well that a towel would make a poor replacement, and besides...it might put Jareth in a good enough mood when he returned she could begin negotiating for some clothes that were more than a tiny step up from lingerie.

Sarah slipped into the tub with a sigh, letting the water coast over stiffened, tired muscles. It wasn't that she felt tremendously better, but hell, she was at least enjoying the fact she was alive right now. She had never wanted to die, and that hadn't changed. She continued to enjoy her almost Schrodinger's Cat-like state of life-in-death as she sank fully beneath the water, letting the warmth wash over her and thoroughly wetting her hair. Above the glossy surface, she noticed the water had a perfume to it as well, something light, but strong, akin to incense. She may never get to heaven, if it did exist, if she was as immortal as Jareth seemed to think, but a bath like this might be a close second. Sarah scrubbed vigorously at her hair and skin when she at last felt ready; she wasn't sure what it was she wanted to rub off herself, but it seemed important. Maybe her her mortal coil, maybe the scent of the soap and laundry detergent she used in her old apartment. Miss Sarah Williams was not a weak girl: if she was going to move forward in her life, it was going to be boldly done, even if the first few steps were small.

An hour might have gone by before she felt like she should pull herself from the tub, wrapping a fluffy towel around her body as she went. She felt as though she were in a deeply trance-like state, so relaxed was she, and the Goblin King could have burst through the bathing chamber door and she would not have flinched at him. Even so, she was just as glad he didn't, but given how he liked to make appearance at less-than-opportune moments, Sarah was a little surprised he wasn't waiting in the bedroom when she returned. What waited for her instead, however, was a beautiful, form-fitting dress: so very soft, and cut surprisingly modestly, a brown and olive color. Instinctively, she felt within her gut that Jareth had not laid this out for her. Any gift he gave her would have come with much teasing and insisting she show more cleavage, she knew him well enough to gather  _ that  _ much. Quickly pulling it over her head and smoothing out the long sleeves and the flat stomach, she went back to the boudoir to twirl in front of the mirror like she was in one of her theater costumes. “Beautiful...” Even with her wet hair dripping down her back, it was,  _ she  _ was. It was a strange thought, but if a goblin or lesser fey of some description had poked its head from around one of the mirrors and informed her it was the Labyrinth itself bestowing gifts upon her....she actually would have believed it. 

Not letting herself follow into Goblin King levels of vanity, Sarah turned away from the many mirrors and bent to wrap the fluffy towel around her wet hair. Maybe she'd dig through one of Jareth's bookshelves now, and contemplate what her next move might be in her current situation. She picked up the book that had been discarded before, the one that surprisingly held Coleridge poetry, and settled herself before the great armchair by the fire. Sarah began reading in earnest, even going through the density of the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” After all, maybe it could give her some perspective on this whole life-in-death thing? But whether it was the soup or the bath or her own exhaustion, she found her eyes growing heavy as she sat before the fire, her head swaying forward, and had no idea at all when she'd fallen asleep.

 

* * *

 

 

When Sarah awoke for the second time, the room was brighter, but she gathered night had fallen: the fire had been stoked back to a full roar, and dozens of candles gleamed and glittered in sconces throughout the stone bedroom. And Jareth was there as well. Her green eyes widened briefly as she watched him divest himself of his open-necked shirt, displaying a smooth chest thinly corded with sleek muscle. Sarah blushed like a school girl and tried to pretend she was still asleep.

It did no good, for somehow the Goblin King knew it was a falsehood (damn him, he always knew), and gave her a smirking glance. “Well, Sleeping Beauty?”

“What are you doing?” Sarah hemmed and hawed, just barely able to ask the question. She said nothing else for a moment, but gave a little squeak as Jareth seized her small hand and pulled her from the chair, twirling her experimentally as though they were still dancing in the crystal ball.

“How pretty you look in that dress,” he mused, standing back to look at her appreciatively, naked fingers to his chin, which gave her pause. It was strangely intimate to see his hands without gloves, never mind the fact that he was shirtless. “However, I must say I'd prefer you without it. Ah-” he raised his hand to stop her speaking as an angry blush colored her cheeks. “Your  _ nightgown  _ is laid out for you, all clean and pressed. Sleeping in a bed is far better than a chair.” With that, he turned from her and walked across to the other corner of the room, opening the closet door and disappearing inside. From what she could see of the doorway, it was dark, Sarah wondered what he could be doing, and said as much. “Getting ready for bed,” he called to her out of the darkness. “What do you think?”

_ Oh _ ! With a sense of urgency to change while she still had half a moment of privacy, Sarah pulled the olivine dress from off herself and wiggled into the slip, sliding under the sheets before he could rake his eyes over her again. Still, Sarah's curiosity was peaked, and she sat up a little in the bed, calling to him in the closet. “Where will you sleep?”

He returned, wearing soft, grey pants that were less form-fitting than his usual apparel, though not by much. Sarah had to admit she doubted he often slept in night clothes, knowing his proclivities, and wondered if this was done for her benefit. “In bed, I should think that obvious.”

“B-but-”

Jareth did not hesitate as she did, crossing the room in a few long strides, gently and teasingly shoving at her hips. “Move over, my sweet.”

“Jareth, I can't sleep in your bed with you!” A pause. “And there's more than room for two  _ without  _ making me move over.”

“Not the way I see it. Go on.” He rolled her gently, and she squeaked, nearly even laughed as she was turned on her side and down onto her stomach, her face muffled by a pillow. With an elegant motion, he slipped into the warm indentation where her body had been, but did not press himself upon her. There was not  _ much  _ space between them, it was true, but it was definitely there. The Goblin King lay his golden head upon a down pillow, lazily waving one wrist so that all the candles winked out and only the soft glow of the fire illuminated the room. Sarah found herself watching him in the dark, watching the way his white skin gleamed in the low light; how his stark features softened slightly when his eyes were closed, but the thin mouth was still in a severe sort of scowl; how his hair turned alabaster, especially when a stray moonbeam struggled its way through the heavy, damask curtains and fell upon his face. He was the most beautiful, unreal man she'd ever seen. Handsome, yes, but different from how she'd have wanted a mortal man to look. Not more feminine, simply more...himself. A category all his own. Sleek, not muscle bound, yet still quite obviously strong and quick as...well, as an owl, perhaps. Without opening his eyes, he spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. “See something you like?”

Sarah turned so that her head rested along her outstretched arm, still very close to him in the dark, warm bed. “Why did you leave me here all day?”

“Where else would you have gone?”

“I don't know. In the castle?”

“You're not ready yet.” Jareth turned, but not to face her; instead, his broad shoulders and smooth back greeted her, and she had the strange compulsion to want to stroke his unreal skin. She resisted the urge. “You'll stay in here until I deem you are.”

“Oh really?” Sarah snorted, green eyes flashing in the low light. “And when is that going to be?”

“I'm an immortal and all powerful near-god-like creature, Sarah, but even  _ I _ require beauty sleep. Surely the pillow talk can wait.”

Sarah snorted again, but fell silent, watching until she noticed his breathing go soft and even, and that the fire began to burn low.

When she fell asleep again, it was dreamless, and she was grateful for that.

 


	4. Chapter Four

* * *

 

 

_Come in close_

_And then even closer_

_We bring it in_

_But we go no further_

_We're separate_

_Two ghosts in one mirror_

_No nearer_

  * “Say When,” The Fray




 

* * *

 

 

Sarah made it difficult for the King to keep his hands off of her. She had always made it difficult. It wasn't that she was a particular flirt, it wasn't really anything she did or said, it was the subtle grace about her, something so intrinsically  _ Sarah  _ that made the skin of his hands itch with the yearning to touch her – oh, just once, very quickly, and he'd be satisfied.

His lips quirked in a self-deprecating smirk at the thought. No, he would not be satisfied by one palm on the smooth skin of her arm. Even were he to throw her to this plush bed and have his wicked way with her, it would  _ never  _ be enough. Jareth was a clever man, well experienced in the world Above and Under. He knew himself, he knew his longings, and he  _ knew this girl _ . One taste would make him all the hungrier, and he knew it would never stop. 

Even at fifteen, Sarah Williams had been a tempting little child: this was not because of some perverse desire for youth or innocence that mortals of her ilk recently had found distasteful (though that in itself was odd to the fey, since they'd had no problem with girls of fifteen even three centuries before this one was born). It was something writ large across her soul, something that ghosted across her lips with her breath, or sparkled in her jeweled eyes. It had been difficult for the Goblin King to see at first, because she was really such a naive, spoiled little thing. Oh, pretty, to be sure, and with a capacity for dreams the likes of which he had not seen in a  _ long  _ time, but it did not seem as though Sarah was much more than that. He'd have been glad to take her, but it would have been a brief affair at best, and he'd have tossed the barely-woman to the side as soon as she became uninteresting.

But Sarah...surprised him. Which shouldn't have been surprising itself in the first place, for if he had not been blinded by an unfortunate moment of hubris, he'd have seen that  _ that  _ was the very mark she carried like a guiding star:  _ look out for this one. She'll turn everything _ .

So at first she had been alluring by the sparkle in her green eyes; the promise of truly  _ glorious  _ womanhood in the curve of her breast and her waist and her hip; by the soft pout of unusually red lips; the light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and the rounding of her cheeks and chin. It was almost endearing in a simpering way how she'd mope and declare everything “unfair,” adorably innocent yet  _ just  _ grown up enough to understand what was so seductive about the man she was playing this fraught game with. That had been enough for a passing interest.

Watching her win had set off an  _ inferno  _ within him.

For days – weeks! – that followed, the Goblin King found himself watching her outside her window as a tawny barn owl, just  _ studying  _ the only girl who had ever beaten him. He would start his days with the best of intentions, fingers to his beak-like nose muttering how he must now set everything right this  _ child  _ had kicked apart like blocks on the nursery room floor. Yet somewhere between his inspections and his directions for the rebuilding to start, poor, stricken Jareth would find himself sitting in the great oak tree that stood as sentinel on the side of the Williams house, looking for Sarah. Not even Toby, not even the little child he'd wanted so much,  _ who gave a hang about bloody little Toby _ ? No, it was Sarah, always Sarah: eating dinner – Sarah. Kicking goblins – Sarah. Laying awake in a bed that now seemed incredibly empty –  _ Sarah _ , damn it, Sarah! 

This was a sickness. No Fey Lord, no  _ King _ , in ten thousand years sat outside the window of a little mortal girl and  _ pined  _ over her! He watched her when she walked to school in the morning, he watched when she played with her baby brother in the yard. He watched how in one mortal night she had grown up, and how she didn't fight with her stepmother, and how she finally understood that maybe Karen Williams was really trying her hardest. He watched her when she went to the park and read – other books now, not the thin red tome that had been with her every waking moment. No, now it was other fairy stories and collections of mythology to try to understand the new world that was opening up to her. Because  _ that  _ was the real sting, wasn't it? Jareth watched when a mushroom sprite poked its little head out of its loamy bed and carried on a conversation with Sarah – and he found himself  _ burning  _ with jealousy.

He wanted to hate her. Gods, but he really did! And yet, somehow, the fervently wished for emotion just would not come. He couldn't even be decently angry at her. She had beaten him, when no mortal or fey had ever done so before. Him, the mighty Goblin King, the creature that made mothers clutch their infants to their breasts and made grown men tremble. But Sarah Williams did not tremble, and he found himself admiring her  _ fiercely  _ for it. He replayed the scene of their final meeting in his inner most sanctum over and over again in his mind – and when that was not enough, he spun it through his crystals and watched it from every angle. Where it ought to have inspired revulsion or rage or at least  _ shame  _ in him, it instead only increased his desire for her to an almost physical  _ ache _ . He would have been laughed out of the High Court for this nonsense, and what was worse, this nonsense  _ aroused  _ him like nothing had in a millennium.

And now, here she was, in his grasp! In his debt, with big, green eyes looking up at him, red lips parted, tears of desperation coating milky cheeks:  _ Please, Jareth, I'll do  _ anything. Was it not everything he'd been longing for, every feverish dream he had woken from in the night that left him gasping her name and desperately hardened for the light touch of her little hands? Here she was, in his own damn bed at last, and all the promises her body had made at fifteen were well paid off in  _ delicious  _ womanhood. 

And yet he  _ did not touch her _ .

It was enough to make a lesser Goblin King scream!

But, there was method to his madness: Jareth was no fool, even if he had been beaten once before (and realistically,  _ anyone  _ would have lost to Sarah...well, just look at her!). He was playing this game long term. The girl was in mourning, she was vulnerable. Nothing could have been easier than to force his attentions upon her, give her comfort with his body and make her need him in her weakness. This might even have been a gratifying option, for a time, but even brought low, Sarah was neither weak nor stupid. She'd hate, or at least disrespect, him for taking advantage of her, and then the whole bloody affair would have been useless. Oh no, let her get  _ comfortable  _ with him first. Taming a woman like Sarah was not unlike the keeping of a small pet; let them get their bearings in one room, let them trust the master, then widen the circle as they gained confidence. She'd come to understand the Underground, since she'd spent this much time with its inhabitants, he felt sure. More than that, she would come to understand her natural place in it – with him. The King would brook no other possibility.

However...

It was Sarah's second evening in the Castle beyond the Goblin City, and when Jareth came to her this night, she was in a new dress (the goblins must have found it for her, gods knew he had had enough made to her measurements for when the time came to claim his Queen); this one was a dark, midnight blue, as tightly fitting as the other, flaring around her waist in the most delightful of ways. The rich color complimented her smooth, white complexion, made her soft hair seem even darker as it framed her face. She was staring into the fire when he walked in, a look in her dreaming eyes like she could be contemplating anything, and any man would have wished it to be him.

Oh, bog and sod the entire Goblin City, there was only so much a hot-blooded man could take.

Sarah barely had time to lift her head to look at him when Jareth crossed the room, seized her by her delicate wrist, and spun her into his arms (the skirt of the dress flared flirtatiously at the whirling movement). Before she could speak or in any way ruin the moment, the Goblin King pressed his mouth firmly onto hers, molded her soft body against the hard line of his own, and kissed her for all the breath she contained.

For her part, Sarah kissed him back. It seemed natural and right to do so. The moment was almost dizzying, far more intense than that one kiss they had shared in her dark apartment on New Year's Eve. Jareth's passion was almost  _ obliterating _ , it muddled her senses and left her knees feeling weak as he held her fast against him. It was well he did so, for she might have fallen to the ground otherwise. Dear God, she, Sarah Williams, was kissing the Goblin King! Well, stranger things between heaven and earth and all that...

Jareth broke the kiss off after a very long moment, the gloved finger and thumb of his right hand just barely holding her chin. He noticed with deep seated pleasure how her lips were all the redder and swollen for the press of his mouth upon hers, the way she had to blink the hazy clouds from her eyes. Had he been looking into a mirror, perhaps he would have been less pleased to note how his breath was being drawn in a soft, shallow gasp and his own eyes were half closed for how he longed for more. He wet his lips a little and, at long last, asked her, “...did you miss me today, precious thing?”

After a moment, the corner of Sarah's mouth quirked in a little smile and one of her small hands wiggled from where it had been crushed against the sturdy muscle of his chest to squeeze at his upper arm. “Well, what do you think, Goblin King?”

 

* * *

 

 

The next night when he returned to her, the King paused in the hallway to his chambers. One of his many goblins was struggling under the weight of a silver platter, tottering along on unsteady, matchstick legs. Which one was this? “Wig,” he hazard a guess, yet spoke with an authority of certainty.

“Majesty,” the little thing blinked, beginning to bow, but righting himself quickly when he realized it would send the plates on the tray clattering to the floor.

Jareth lifted one of the shining covers that kept the plates warm and took a casual sniff. “Is this food for the Lady Sarah?”

“Yes!” he squeaked with excitement, his thin boar's tail swinging side to side.

“I will take it, Wag.” The little creature actually looked disappointed for a moment. “Is that a  _ problem _ ?”

“No, Majesty!” he was squeaking again, hopping from one tiny foot to the other, incredibly anxious. “No, no, you take plate, Wog go way now!” As soon as he had been relieved of his burden, the tiny goblin skittered down the hall as though the Beast of the Bog might be after him. Jareth snorted lightly with amusement before he crossed the rest of the way to his chamber door, nudging it open with his booted foot.

Sarah was pacing anxiously, back and forth, like a caged animal, sighing all the while. “Such distress for one so lovely is quite a shame.”

She stopped her pacing, turning her face to look at him and she almost seemed...pleased. “I was expecting Wog.”

_ Wog _ , that was it... “So sorry to disappoint.”

“Yeah, well.” She smiled a very little bit. “I guess you'll just have to do.” He crossed the room then, laying the platter on a waiting side table, and Sarah curiously lifted one of the warming lids. “I thought I was getting better at this, but I'm not even sure what this is.”

Jareth peered over her white hand. “Ah, that's  _ krorrorarn _ .” Sarah stared at the King and his perfectly accented Goblin; he sighed a little. “It's a local specialty. A little like a, what's it called...ratatouille? Vegetables stewed with fish heads.”

Sarah's pretty red mouth hung open, like she was purposefully tempting him. “Uh, ew?”

“They take out the fish heads before they serve it.”

“And yet I am not comforted.”

“You might as well eat it,” he huffed at her, sprawling on the chaise lounge in regal indolence. “It would be a nice gesture on your part, since you're the future Goblin Queen.”

Sarah settled herself beside him, pulling the end table closer so she might eat without spilling, quirking a narrow eyebrow at him. “No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You live an elaborate fantasy life, you know that?” Sarah picked up the tiny clay pot next to the dish of various, steaming, savory vegetables; if she was being honest, it did smell rather good. “Let me guess,” she sighed. “Mustard?”

“It is the...condiment of choice, yes.” He seemed to have been searching for the proper word, though his mismatched eyes were entirely dispassionate.

“Mustard...” Sarah huffed, taking out the small wooden spoon and spreading some of the grainy mustard over the vegetables. “They even brought me mustard with my eggs this morning, you know.”

“I am hardly surprised.”

“Well, if it's a goblin dish, I guess I should eat it the goblin way.” Thus saying, she scooped up what she hoped was a piece of green squash and popped it delicately into her mouth.

Sarah began a fit of coughing so immense that her face became maroon in hue and tears sprang to her eyes. Jareth was actually concerned for her safety for a moment, sitting up and quickly laying the flat of his hand upon her spasming back. “Sarah!”

“ _ What  _ is  _ that _ !” she managed to wheeze through a rain of tears.

Jareth touched the tip of his finger to the yellow-brown mustard concoction and just barely lay that upon his tongue. “Ah. I might have guessed.”

“Guessed what, poison!”

“No. It's the kind they make with Goblin Ale.”

He was unclear at what point her tears ceased and her laughter began, but quite to the King's surprise, when one did give way to the other, Sarah had collapsed against him, clutching her sides and almost letting her head spill into his lap. It was a...good thing to see. “ _ Ohmygawd _ ,” she wheezed, still convulsing with giggles. “I don't think I'm going to eat dinner tonight...”

“It might be just as well,” he agreed, studying the shaking form of her back as she continued to lean against him. At great length, her sniggering subsided and she straightened herself, still tantalizingly close to him. He could have reached out and brushed the stray, silken hairs from her face – and he very much wanted to, and yet how could he dare? She was looking into his eyes, as if for a moment there was a world of understanding between them. He couldn't take having her so near and so unavailable, and broke the silence. “What were you ruminating on before I arrived.”

“Oh.” Sarah's countenance fell slightly, her brow furrowed. “I was thinking that I've been cooped up a lot lately. That maybe some fresh air would do me some good?”

Jareth could not stop himself; he lay his palm across her smooth cheek, and she did not blink nor pull away. “You mean to say you actually  _ want  _ to move forward with your life?”

“Well....yes?” Sarah looked just as confused. “I can't sit around and mope forever – which isn't to say, tada, I'm all better and happy as a clam, but...I mean, you don't want me like that, do you?” When he didn't respond, she clarified, “Miserable?”

There was another long silence. The corners of his lips tugged in the barest of smiles. “You know, it just might.”

Sarah blinked at him, completely missing his train of thought. “Uh, what?”

“Do you good. Fresh air. Come.” Without another word, he rose from his languid position on the chaise and pulled her up with him by the elbow. Sarah did not protest, perhaps too off-put to fight on this issue. With a gentle motion of his hand, he parted one of the heavy damask curtains, and pulled her out onto the great stone balcony.

“Oh,  _ wow _ !” Sarah's breath was caught and she found herself rooted on the snowy terrace, staring out. The whole world of the Underground seemed to stretch out from the Goblin King's bedroom outcropping, glittering white in the wintery world. There was the slight, sharp scent of ozone as snowflakes fell in great whirligig fashion. The heavy flakes coated her long hair, stuck to her full lashes until she blinked them off. The Labyrinth, all of it, leading away almost as far as the eye could see. Its twists and turns stood out even more clearly, blanketed as it was in a layer of snow. Jareth stood not a foot from her, watching her watching the world. “I didn't realize it was beautiful...”

“It can be,” he replied, arms crossed against his chest, but not in a defensive or irritated posture. He did not blink nor took his gaze from her. “The Labyrinth is many things, it suits the viewer.”

Sarah shook her head a little, breaking away from her examination to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means that it changes – it adjusts. To the viewer, to the Runner. It fits ones expectations to the utmost.”

“You're saying...” she struggled, head bowed and looking at the snow that swirled around their feet. “I  _ imagined  _ everything that happened?”

He smirked a little. “Not exactly. More that the course of your life meant you could understand what was happening in a certain way. The Labyrinth merely accommodated you in that.”

Sarah seemed deeply lost in thought, and Jareth wondered what might be crossing her mind. Was this startling knowledge, upsetting? She said nothing for a moment, but surprised him a little by suddenly looking up and meeting his eye. “It's getting kind of cold.”

“Of course,” he nodded, sweeping the curtain aside again and ushering her back in. Not a trace of snow dared follow their path back into the delectable warmth of the bedroom, which Sarah found somewhat interesting.

She paused before the hearth and realized after a moment that Jareth wasn't speaking. Sarah raised her face to him, brow furrowed, cocking her head to the side. “Jareth?” He was watching her from by the curtain, as if staring straight into her soul. Sarah laughed nervously. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

It was as if those were the trigger words to open the floodgates. Without a moment of warning, his strong hands wrapped around her upper arms and dragged her to him, crushing her mouth in a merciless kiss. A younger or different Sarah might have been shocked or angered. This one welcomed the action, something to  _ do  _ other than twirl around this little room and focus on her misery every moment. As soon as the Goblin King's grip loosed, she wound her arms around his neck and gave for every kiss she got, returned his passion to the utmost. What was so sinful about it? He seemed designed to attract her, always had, from the moment he appeared in her parents' bedroom that night thirteen years ago. Fearsome, yes, but also with that arousing tingle of  _ something  _ that clawed at her stomach. When she was foolish and fifteen, a part of her had wished he had kissed her in the ballroom, though if he had, she wasn't sure it wouldn't have meant she'd stay there – maybe forever. No danger of that now: she was a woman, not an impressionable girl, and she could handle Jareth now in ways she could not then.

_ Many  _ ways she could not then.

The fey king gasped for breath against her mouth, while she still pressed to his jaw, or would drag her teeth along the sensitive skin of his throat. He shuddered: this was so much better than he could have anticipated...He held the black fabric of Sarah's skirt back for her as she hooked one leg expertly around his hips and shoved him back, keeping her grip on his shirt all the while. They fell back onto his massive bed as one unit, bouncing slightly against the plush and springs, and he twinged with pleasure. Sarah, at last, leaning over him, straddling his hips and grazing her nails across the thin skin of his chest. Jareth hissed and arched himself into the motion, while Sarah set her lips and teeth back against his Adam's apple, their pulses beating wildly and yet in unison. Were the painful pleasure not so palpable, he might have thought he was dreaming again.

So feisty, this little girl grown to womanhood – and yet so  _ achingly  _ submissive and mewling when he rolled her over, his pelvis fitting tortuously well in the cradle of her hips. Carefully done, carefully done, he must hold himself back or he would gleefully tear into her and consume her and ruin all his fine plans. The little minx made it difficult, engaging his mouth the way she did, twirling his tongue with her own, twining her fingers into his fine hair and pulling his head closer for greater access. 

They were kisses for their own purpose, leading up to nothing greater or hotter or fiercer. Pleasure for its own sake. The trading of caresses and sucking and licking and nipping continued at a fevered pitch until Jareth was sure he could feel himself throbbing against the heat of her thigh, but Sarah fell back at the last moment, gasping for breath and cheeks thoroughly flushed. Her lips (those horribly delicious lips) were red and swollen from where he'd claimed them and gently bitten and  _ indulged _ . He loved the way her breast rose and fell with each labored movement for air, each attempt to cool her racing body. “Maybe,” she panted, one hand lying across her chest in order to feel the beating of her heart. “Maybe we shouldn't.”

Jareth breathed over her, simultaneously relieved and outraged.  _ How  _ he wanted her. And yet, how wonderful...she played this game wisely too, it seemed, which really ought not surprise him by now. Careful not to make any moves of desperation she might later regret, hm? The Goblin King wove his magic about himself and tightened it like a straight jacket, demanding his body calm itself. With the greatest of will and forbearance, he agreed. “Maybe we shouldn't,” and lowered himself beside her.

It gratified and mollified him somewhat to note, however, that she did not bashfully pull away from him on the bed, or otherwise act coquettish or coy. Rather, Sarah drew her body close to his, laying her head at the crook of his arm, chest and shoulder. Absentmindedly, the King ran her silky hair between his fingertips and breathed in quiet motions. “Jareth?” she was whispering in the dark, and his eyes closed. Someday soon, she would not whisper that name in his bed, he'd have her  _ scream  _ it.

“Hm?” was all he managed instead, trying to remain focused, with eyes on the prize, as it were.

“What happens when we die?”

The Goblin King gave a soft sigh, fluttering a stray lock of her hair with the movement of his breath. Trust Sarah to ask the hard questions. “I don't know, precious thing, I've never died.”

Sarah wiggled against his chest slightly, laying one delicate hand across his abdomen to use as leverage so she could twist to see the edge of his face. “You hang out with Death. You guys have...jovial games of chance.”

“Mm, yes,” he agreed, not looking down at her and continuing his soft pets and ministrations. “But we do try to stay off the topic of work, professional courtesy, you know.”

It was exactly the kind of answer she could expect from Jareth, she knew that. It was not a satisfying one, but it held its own kind of perverse logic – Underground logic, she mused. For this reason, she spoke not a word the rest of the night, just lay against the heat of his body, and Jareth let her. He did not move a muscle when he realized the quietness of her breathing had changed into something a little more easy, a little softer: asleep, then. Well...he could lie there beside her a little while. Better not to wake her when she was comfortable.

 

* * *

 

 

He made sure to intercept her next dinner as well, snatching it from a startled Wog without a word of warning. The King examined the meal carefully before handing the pot of ever-present mustard over to the very confused little goblin, waving him away with a dismissive gesture of his black gloved hand. Jareth was quite bold striding into the chamber door this time, head high, chest out. And why shouldn't he be? It was  _ his  _ bedroom, after all – not that he wasn't enjoying sharing it.

The pleasure was somewhat diminished on this occasion, however: Sarah was not pacing around this time, she was staring deeply into the fire in its grate. She did not even look up at him when he entered the room, though the Goblin King felt sure he had not been silent. She did not move, did not smile, it was rather disappointing. He cleared his throat.

The girl jumped, apparently startled; so she must not have noticed him at all, very queer. Blinking wide, green eyes, she said, “Oh!...I'm sorry, I was...” She didn't finish the thought, which was equally disturbing, but Jareth was too smart to push.

Instead, he held the platter out to her, an offering. “Your dinner,” he said in clipped, controlled tones.

Sarah seemed listless. She could not have been very hungry, because her eyes did not light up this time with the promise of a meal. Perhaps last night's  _ krorrorarn _ had had a worse effect on her appetite than anticipated...Still, she gracefully took the platter from him, settling on the divan. “Where's the mustard?” she asked, at last looking up at him.

Jareth sprawled in his favorite lounge chair, one leg thrown over the arm in his classic, relaxed pose. “You don't like it, I took it away.”

“You didn't tell them that, did you?”

“'Them?'”

“The goblins.” He stared at her and she huffed slightly, pale cheeks barely coloring. “If they gave it to me, I ought to accept it graciously, not be rude and throw it out.”

Jareth blinked, jaw working open a bit. “But you don't even eat it.”

“So?” She watched him pinch the bridge of his nose and sighed. She didn't feel up to arguing, she hadn't the energy. Maybe the food would help her a bit. She lifted one of the silver lids and blinked. “Oh, it's chicken.”

The King smirked for his position, apparently amused and lazily dancing a crystal across his fingertips. “Well, that explains that, then.”

“Explains what?”

“This morning's goblin chicken memorial service.” Instantly, he knew it had been the wrong thing to say: Sarah visibly flinched, a spoon on the platter fell to the floor with an impossibly loud, tinkling sound. He sat up straight in his chair, for once his alien eyes serious and sincere. “I apologize, that was thoughtless of me.” She didn't seem to hear him, her breathing going shallow and labored. “Sarah.”

“I-I know...” her voice was trembling, and she held her right hand in her left, as if to steady it. That did little good, for the left began to shake as well. “I know I said I understood I couldn't say goodbye, but I...” She moved the tray off her lap and fixed a serious gaze on the wall to her left, refusing to look at him. It seemed she may cry at any moment and did not wish to share that with him. “If I were dead, I wouldn't have to wonder what they were doing, if they were okay, if they were  _ missing  _ me.”

“You doubt that?”

“I don't. That's almost worse.” Sarah's pale face dropped into her pale, shaking hands and Jareth sat forward in the chair. “I wanted to save them, but what if I've caused them more pain?”

“Sarah.” Jareth's voice was very serious, even a little cold. “Let's be clear: you wanted to save  _ yourself  _ pain, you didn't want to have to deal with the grief of losing your family. It's not that you acted selfishly, but you did have your own well-being in mind.”

She made a sound into her hands, a laugh or a sob, it was hard to tell. “I guess you're right...damn, who knew being a martyr could be so self-centered, huh?”

The Goblin King approached her very slowly, a centimeter at a time, his fingers reaching out to her trembling hands. With the greatest of care, he touched her; she flinched, but he didn't think it was at him, more a response to stimulus than anything else. Carefully, he peeled and pulled her hands away from her and tilted her chin to look at him. Damn it, he somehow hadn't planned for this – for her lovely face to be swollen and red, eyes straining with unshed tears. Damn that damn, stupid mortal girl for making him weak – because at that moment, anything she would have asked for, he would have given her, anything to make her not look like  _ that _ . The moon from out of the heavens, his heart ripped out of his chest, damn it, damn it,  _ damn it _ .

It was only with the greatest of fortitude that Sarah could look him in the face. She wanted a trap door to open up and drop her in an oubliette, so she could feel good and miserable and awful  _ privately _ . Jareth could see into her like this, see how frightened and weak she was, even after all this time. So she'd beaten the Labyrinth, so what? It hadn't stopped  _ this _ . Still, there was a painful tugging at her heart – it would be a concession, but she  _ had  _ to ask. Maybe he'd demand too high a price of her, but it really couldn't matter right now. “Jareth,” she pleaded, biting her lip to keep from crying.  _ I really don't want to cry in front of him, I  _ really  _ don't _ . “Isn't there  _ any  _ way-”

He stopped her, planting a finger against her chapped lips. Sarah said and did nothing at all. “If you ask me to send you back, you'd be a monster, you'd be nothing like you were or are.”

“Not back...” she hesitated. What, she'd be a zombie? A vampire or something? Sarah knew the score. There was no going back once you've gone forward. “Just... _ see  _ them again. Just once, I'd...” 

She'd what? Do anything? He thought he might like to hear that again, yet somehow the thought gave him little satisfaction. He'd wanted Sarah back, but it just wasn't as nice when she was like this. He didn't want to care about her, he wanted to use her. But it was impossible. She was too strong for him still, it seemed, because without having to do anything at all, she took away his power to manipulate her. “It won't help,” he told her, voice very firm and pitiless, because he was  _ not  _ going to stoop to petting and cooing, no matter  _ how  _ tearful those sage green eyes became. “You wouldn't be able to touch them, they wouldn't hear you. Why do this?”

“...what else can I do?” she replied, barely shrugging, her soft eyes roaming over the stark lines of his face. Double damn all over again, this woman was  _ vicious _ !

Without another word, the Goblin King caved to her, back straight so she would not see it in him. He did not take his eyes from her face as he held up a brand new crystal, this one dull and opaque, like smoke swirled inside of it. Sarah glanced at it, startled. “Look inside,” he instructed, and without a moment's hesitation or lack of trust, she did as told. Sarah almost looked away when she realized he'd laced the fingers of his free hand with her own, but he corrected, “ _ Look _ .” He was looking too, she realized, and was about to thank him, when she felt her gaze pulled back to the softly glowing bubble, and the world around her swam...

 

* * *

 

 

Toby's palms were sweating all over the papers he was clutching to himself, sitting in the worn oak pew of the great church hall. He didn't remember ever seeing Sarah go to church, but where else would they have the service? This place was enormous: a vaulted ceiling that stretched into shadows, a ten-foot tall cross attached to the wall behind the altar. The windows were stained glass, pictures of martyrs bleeding and dying. It was gross, who would want to come and sit in this oppressive atmosphere every weekend?  _ It must be a Catholic thing _ . Were they Catholic? Toby wasn't really sure.

The steps to the altar were blocked in the center by a giant table, covered in Sarah. A long, black table cloth dripped to the floor, and it carried her. Pictures of every sort: her most recent head shot, where her long dark hair cascaded down one shoulder, and her smile was so wide and inviting, it seemed to beckon the entire world to come and see her; her high school graduation photo, where her face still had the roundness of youth, and she beamed with such pleasure; one from when she was fourteen or fifteen, dancing with her mother's boyfriend, and she looked so pleased and embarrassed; one where she was twelve, with her arms wrapped tightly around the old dog Merlin's neck and she smiled fit to break; one with Dad and a tiny Sarah and Linda; and the worst one of all – one where Sarah was sixteen, with toddler Toby on her lap, and they looked at one another like the world had never been witness to such love before.

Toby's hands tightened around his papers. There were more than photos, of course. A small mountain of flowers was piled up on every side – white lilies mostly, which were gross to him and redolent of death. But there were roses, too, that her actor friends brought, like they were simply applauding her grandest performance of all. Toby Williams decided he hated flowers, and he never wanted to look at another one as long as he lived. Someone had placed a few of her scripts upon the table, highlighting passages that were her greatest triumphs. Toby had discretely put the tattered old bear Launcelot on the table before anyone else had arrived, and hadn't seen his mother watch him do it.

“You'll Never Walk Alone,” was being played rather masterfully by her accompanist up front. Toby recognized it because he remembered Sarah practicing it when she'd been home from school. It soured his stomach now, and he wished his mom hadn't forced him to eat that danish this morning. The memory of it tasted foul on his tongue. His mind had drifted off for a moment, swearing a bloody vengeance on all pastries, when he felt something nudge his elbow, and he looked up. It was Robert Williams, looking down at him with tears in his eyes.  _ Stop crying, Dad _ . He wanted to shout it, but he didn't say a word. “Toby,” his father mouthed to him. “You're on.”

What? Oh. The eulogy, his eulogy. On shaky, lanky legs, Toby stood, dragging his feet slowly up the sanctuary steps to the microphone. His black tie felt like it was strangling him all of a sudden, and he wanted to shrug off his sports coat. It was too hot. The teenage boy pulled the microphone closer to him when he reached it, not wincing at the scream and hiss of feedback through the audio system. Looking across the pews was like looking at an ocean of dark faces – so many people, all here for Sarah. He could hear some murmur, even from way up there. “Who's that?” “Must be her brother.” “They don't look alike.” “Look how sweet and cute he is. Oh, he is adorable.” That one pissed him off a bit. “She talked about him all the time.” “She'd be so proud.” Toby clenched his cue cards tighter again, and raised them up to read. He knew his mouth was moving, he could feel the words across his tongue, but he didn't hear a sound, not a single sound in the whole packed cathedral.

It was because he realized something: he hated them. He hated  _ all  _ of them. Who were all these jerks that thought they knew Sarah, thought they knew something about  _ his  _ sister? They cried about her? They were sad? Fuck them, they didn't even know the beginning of what  _ sad _ was, what  _ he  _ was going through for Sarah. He thought about teachers patting him awkwardly on the back and saying how hard it must be to lose a sister. Meaningless crap, all of it, designed to make them feel like they'd discharged their duty, not to make  _ him  _ feel better. What in the fuck did any of them know? Sarah wasn't  _ just  _ a sister, she wasn't some person you happened to be related to and hung in the periphery of your vision. She was half a mother, a confidant, more than the greatest friend he'd ever had. When Karen grounded him, it was Sarah Toby ran to. He could cry his eyes out in her lap and she would comfort him and  _ understand _ . She had the capacity to comprehend like no one else in the world ever had. And when monsters were under his bed, his parents would insist it was his imagination, but not Sarah. She grabbed a bat and braced herself, assuring him, “Don't worry, Toby. I'll protect you.” And she'd tear under the bed or in his closet shouting, “You can't have him, you creeping little jerks!” Sarah was a knight in shining armor, the greatest storyteller, the perfect nurse for his scraped knees. She gave advice on girls, she gave advice on homework, and she gave no advice at all and just listened when no one else would.

So they  _ loved  _ Sarah? They had no  _ idea  _ about Sarah. She was  _ Toby's  _ sister, she wasn't anyone else's, they belonged to each other and had from the first moment he drew breath on this earth.

And now she was gone. And they had the nerve to be sad about it. And that was all. Just sad, when he felt like he could crawl into a hole and never get up again, because if he did, Sarah wouldn't be there.

He almost dropped the microphone when he was finished, rather than replacing it in its stand. He shook with his outrage when he descended the steps, barely felt his father's strong hand on his back. “It was beautiful, Toby,” he was saying, but Toby wasn't really hearing. “She would have been so proud.” He already knew that.

Somewhere in this cacophony of silence and whispers, Sarah opened her eyes, her fingers still entwined with the Goblin King's. The edges of her vision were hazy, smokey, like in the crystal. Everything shimmered with an unreality she remembered from biting into the peach.  _ At least it's not spinning _ ... she thought ruefully to herself, and tried to orient her mind to where she was standing.

It wasn't a place she recognized, but she could clearly see it was some massive church hall. And so many people...Dear God, there was her father and Karen, dressed in black and sitting at the front. Next to them...her mother, and Jeremy. Sarah's jaw dropped: they had come, they had come for  _ her _ . “Mom!” Linda Williams was crying.

“She won't hear you, I told you.” Jareth's voice was quite cold next to her ear, and it startled her. But for the warmth of his hand in hers, she would have forgotten he was there entirely. So many people, and she...she  _ knew  _ them all, it seemed. Co-stars from productions way back into college, friends she'd made in high school and hadn't spoken with in years; even her apartment supervisor was crying, that giant, hairy Italian that would have as soon snarled at her as shaken her hand. Music swirled around her head, but she couldn't really hear it, and it made her brain throb just a little. Her vision became murkier. Jareth took her elbows and pulled her back against him, and Sarah let him. It was odd, but he was like her anchor in all of this.

“Is this my...” she gasped, unable to finish the thought.

It didn't matter, he knew what she would have said. “It is.”

She thought she was standing by one of the worn pews, but no, she wasn't. It was a communion hall now, all white, chairs and tables spread in cautious circles. On the far wall, a table piled high with funereal foods: cold turkey sandwiches, sad looking red grapes, bowls of fruit punch with out-of-season strawberries floating on the surface. It didn't look anything like her vision at all, though, it all looked...so planned, so carefully laid. A last gift to her and the people grieving all around her. Oh God. She hadn't expected this...

And the vision...was it her imagination, or did she see that little boy again? It had to be him, it had to be. He was sitting in a folding chair with an uneaten cookie on his lap, and he was crying his little eyes out. Sarah was drawn to him, like she was a mother gone to hush her crying babe. But who was that woman next to him? She hadn't seen her before. Was that his true mother? Sarah looked up at Jareth, who had followed her across the room.

He must have understood the question in her eyes, for he lowly intoned, “The driver is recovering in the hospital still, but when he is well, he's going to be arrested. For vehicular manslaughter, among other things, I suppose.”

“What about them?” she asked, pointing a shaking finger at the little boy that was just a few inches from her hand and yet so very, very far away.

Jareth sighed through his nose, looking rather irritable. “He feels guilt for his father's actions. They're there because he cannot be – and he  _ would  _ not be, even if he could. Are you finished?”

No. No, she wasn't finished, because as she rose from her bent position by the child, her eyes fixed across the hall to the doorway, where a young man stood stock still, all black, all quiet. “Toby...” He strode in with a strength he was only gaining through pubescence, his unruly blond curls viciously pulled back against his head. It seemed like he had gotten taller since she'd....been away. His chest was thinner, his arms more spindly. Was it another growth spurt? She watched him cross the distance toward the refreshment table, and saw how his eyes fixed on the crying child. He knew who it was, then! Sarah's heart leaped into her throat, her hands tightening around themselves with a grip of desperation. “Yes!” she cried, watching her baby brother draw closer. This could make things right, it could! “Understand, Toby!” Sarah was bouncing on her feet a little as the young man approached. “Comfort him, go on!”

Toby Williams stopped before the table, observed the child, who looked at him with wet and reddened eyes. The little round face was swollen with tears – and the young man curled his lip in the coldest sneer he'd ever given, and walked away. It was an expression she would have expected from Jareth, not her brother. Not the boy who would not kill spiders, he was so innocent.

“Oh, Toby...” Sarah was gasping for breath, watching his back as he walked away. Before she could watch more, she felt Jareth's hands at her elbows again, dragging her away, watching the room melt around her again in mind-numbing slowness, like paint dripping down a window. “No!” she shouted, writhing against his grip, but his fingers became almost bruising at the crooks her elbows. She reached out, for the little boy, for her brother, for anything solid at all. “Stop it, I'm not ready yet!”

He must have listened, for they were not back in the Underground, at least, not to her eye. It was a long, dark hallway, and she could hear the murmur of voices back in the communion hall. Jareth stood before her, and she could have sworn there was a cloak about his shoulders that had not been there when they were in the bedroom. “There's nothing left to see,  _ Sarah _ ,” he hissed her name like it angered him, eyes narrowed and burning hotly. “I refuse to sit here and watch this...self-flagellation.” 

He was angry? Fine, she could be angry, too, and she put her hands on her soft hips and met him glare for glare. “What did you do to Toby!” she demanded of him, and watched his face twitch a little in...confusion? She wasn't sure.

“What did  _ I  _ do to Toby?” he repeated, his tapered fingers just barely resting along his broad chest.

“He'd never have acted that coldly,” Sarah continued, temper set. “Never, ever. You're manipulating him somehow, I know it.”

Jareth curled a cold, thin lip at her, which was a little unsettling. “You greatly overestimate my interest in your baby brother,  _ love _ .”

“Then explain that! Explain why he looked like....like  _ that _ .” Not the most articulate she'd ever been, but hell, it was a bit of an upsetting situation.

Jareth seized her by the elbows again, pulled and twirled her so that she landed with her back against his chest. She could feel the heat of him, and his strong left arm wrapped around her waist in a tight vice. “I already told you,  _ Sarah _ ,” he hissed her name again, and she pulled away with a wince. “Millions of people would not have hesitated to put the driver in your position instead – and your little Toby is one of those millions.”

“You shut up about Toby!” she shouted back at him, somehow able to yank herself from his grip and spinning away, just out of reach. “You shut your goddamn mouth about him! You don't know anything about him! He's upset, that's it! He's a boy, he doesn't understand!”

“And neither do I, is that it?” The King took one step toward her, a confident one, the stride of a man who knows he will win – eventually. Sarah retreated a little down the hall. “I am not saying I do not 'get it,' my dear. On the contrary, I very much do – better than you, I think, which is a bit of an irony. He's an angry, selfish boy, who hasn't truly learned compassion, is that it?” Sarah stammered and stuttered a little. He was up to something, what was it? “Who  _ does  _ that remind you of, I wonder?”

Sarah spit a little at him, trying to regain her composure. “He'll grow out of it, it's just immaturity. He'll grow up and learn, lots of people do.”

“Correction.” He raised on gloved finger, and Sarah watched it. “Lots of people  _ never  _ grow out of being selfish and self-centered and cold.  _ Some  _ do. What made  _ you _ , I wonder?”

She bristled – mainly because he was right. Toby made her, though, she wasn't going to give Jareth any satisfaction by saying it was somehow thanks to  _ him _ . “You're not going to throw this back at me, Goblin King.”

“I don't have to.” He stood tall and thin and regal and so very elegant. She felt blinded, just looking at him being so frustratingly confident. “You do these things to  _ yourself _ , Sarah. You wanted to be a martyr and you're enjoying making me the villain once again.”

“Not  _ everything  _ is about you.”

“And not everything is about you, either. A little gratitude wouldn't go unnoticed.”

“Please, spare me how put upon and abused you are!”

“Am I not?” He grabbed her wrist and twisted, so that she had to come closer with a yelp in order to avoid more pain. “Have I chained you up in an oubliette? Have I tied you to my bed and devoured you? Have I not done  _ everything  _ you have asked of me – as I always have, you  _ little girl _ .”

“And I'm  _ indebted to you  _ for it,” she hissed, wanting to pull her wrist free from him, but not daring more shooting pain. “But you  _ know  _ that already. Why do you want me to say it?”

A palpable moment passed between them; slowly, one finger at a time, Jareth released his hold on her wrist, and Sarah felt compelled to look up into his face. He looked so...drawn, so pale, so utterly weary. As if in response to her searching gaze, he softly said, “I would have spared you all this.”

What a declaration. It said everything and nothing in as many words. Not quite knowing why, Sarah lay her injured hand on his arm and respond, “I know-” but she was interrupted in her reverie.

“Sarah?”

Both their heads turned to look down the long, dim hallway. Toby stood at the end, his paper cup dropped to the floor without his notice. Was he losing his mind? Just a shimmer, just a moment, but he could swear in that endless second, he could  _ see _ ...

“Hmmph,” the Goblin King harrumphed. “It seems your baby brother is more the Seer than either of us knew.”

Sarah wasn't listening, her breath hitching on her pale lips. On the instinct of love, her arms reached out to him, spread wide, and she cried, “Toby!” like she had in the Escher Room, like she did whenever she came to save him from his nightmares.

Toby did not hesitate for a moment. His feet did not need to be told what to do, he  _ bolted  _ down the hallway. Sarah, Sarah, it had to be Sarah. It  _ had  _ to be her, he was going to wake up and she'd be there, and everything would be alright, and yes, if he could just reach her-!

His shaking fingers stretched out to touch her, and as soon as it seemed they might meet-

Sarah stumbled forward, knocking her knee painfully against the King's preferred lounge chair.

Toby slammed awkwardly into a wall, and later told his father he must have broken his finger playing basketball.

 


	5. Chapter Five

* * *

 

 

_And my own two hands will comfort you_

_Tonight, tonight_

_Say when_

_And my own two arms will carry you_

_Tonight, tonight_

  * “Say When,” The Fray




 

* * *

 

 

Jareth was wise enough to leave after they found themselves in the master suite once again. Sarah found her roiling emotions torn: she wanted to find something heavy to hurl at his head, though she wasn't sure it was his fault she'd been unable to reach her brother; she wanted to beat him to a bloodied pulp with her fists; she wanted to twine her hands firmly into the smooth silk of his shirt and  _ sob _ .

But she was glad when he was gone. She wept and howled like a banshee, like she had not allowed herself to cry this whole  _ wretched  _ time. She cried the way she hadn't cried when she found out about the accident, she cried to have lost her whole life, her family, for the pain and suffering they were going through. She cried hardest of all for Toby, for how he hurt for her, for what his life would be without her there to guide him. She was  _ glad  _ Jareth was gone, because she would have hated him if he'd seen her in this open, vulnerable and wounded state.

And the Goblin King did not come to her that night when she flung herself onto his bed and at last exhausted herself with her tears. Before, she might have cared, might have felt guilty for taking his bedroom from him. Right now, she didn't care if he curled up to sleep at the bottom of the Bog of Eternal Stench. Damn it, she  _ deserved  _ some peace for all she was suffering, and he could rot for needling her for it. He was not there when she awoke in the morning, either, and so Sarah had no idea if he had ever gone to bed or not. She was still dressed in the clothing she'd been wearing last night, her face still puffy from all her tears, and her neck ached painful from an awkward angle of sleep. However...there was a silver tray with hot cereal on it, waiting for her by the bedside table. And on it was a cup of what looked like – glory of glories – coffee. 

Sarah sat up, sniffled to herself, and smacked her forehead with the heel of her palm. “Okay, Williams,” she scolded herself, drawing her knees to her chest. “If we're done being freaking  _ three years old _ , let's stop having tantrums and act twenty eight.” The woman sniffled a little, pulling the coffee close to her chest and enjoying the heat of it in her hands. She'd take a hot bath, she decided, and... “And maybe I should apologize to Jareth.” Honestly, she wasn't sure. She had needed that time to go absolutely out of her mind with grief and despair, but whether her actions and feelings were perfectly justified or not, she felt...inexplicably guilty. Not over any particular thing she'd done or said (or not done, nor said), but just...in general. “Oh jeeze,” the girl sighed, combing her fingers through her tangled, dark hair. “I really do  _ not  _ owe that prancing, feathered jackass anything. He's been polite – but he  _ should  _ be polite, it would be wrong of him not to be.” Yet even so...

He'd stood with her, there, in the reception hall. He'd been pushy and cold and aloof – but he'd been there.

“...yeah. I guess I will apologize, just....because.”

Sarah was quiet the entire day: she ate the breakfast and had no appetite the rest of the afternoon. She spent more than an hour in the bath, working out her stiff muscles and trying to sort through the mess that was in her mind. Her friends and family, her mother and father and their significant others, their images played over and over in her mind. But Toby stood at the center of it all; she could try to focus on her costars or high school friends, her old roommates and ex-boyfriends, but her mind always went back to Toby. Poor, lonely Toby, a lost young man without a big sister to guide him. What was to become of her baby brother? He was so much more sensitive than those around him, and why shouldn't he be? And Sarah had always understood that, had always done her utmost to protect and shelter him. What would become of him now? And did he See, after all, after all the care she'd taken to hide him away from prying, fey eyes? What would the cost of  _ that  _ be?

Sarah felt young and small again in the hours inside the Goblin King's bedroom. She walked round and round again in circles, examining every book on the shelf, every tapestry and portrait along the walls. She tried to read, but could not get settled. She stole breaths of air from behind the curtain to the balcony, but found the cold painful on her skin. Most of the day, she just stared into the fire, her whole body tense as if waiting for something to happen, like she'd spent her whole life just waiting for one breaking, breath-taking moment-

It happened. It happened when an unseen clock in a faraway hall clearly tolled eight, the bells ringing through the entire castle and, it seemed, her mind as well. When the last of the chimes finished, when the vibrations of the noise began to fade, the bedroom door opened, and Sarah pivoted on unsteady feet, muscles set, ready, ready for-

For what, exactly?

Her tongue could not have formed into words what she was expecting when  _ he  _ came through that door, her logical mind would have had a difficult time trying to explain the situation to an outsider. She had meant to open her mouth to give her apology, but found that the words died in her throat. For when Jareth walked in – all tall, all imperial, mouth set in a sultry scowl, eyes catching the low light of the fire – her soul and body knew  _ exactly  _ what she'd been waiting for, perhaps for her entire life, this one moment. 

They stared at one another, Sarah and the Goblin King, their lips parted and breath dry. There was no reason on earth that this type of union made any sense: he was as old as the puff of wind upon the earth, unreal and otherworldly, some ancient thing created when there was still much magic in the world. She was so incredibly human, lovely, but just mortal, simple in her personal purity. In no particular way did the pair make any kind of sense, no one would have looked at them and understood why they fit together, palm to palm and soul to soul. The reasoning was much older than themselves – yes, older, even, than Jareth's considerable magic. They fit in the way almost all women and men do, but so much more intensely: like had the world been torn apart and reformed, and only one pair would do to make it start again, this would have been the pair to pick, like God himself had formed the union and they two had no idea about it.

It was for this reason they crashed into one another, a collision of frantic lips and grasping hands that tore at one another's clothing as though the restriction were deeply offensive. Words explaining desire or longing or curiosity would have defiled this moment. To say it was merely the biological reaction of two complimentary genders would also have been far too crude and simple. For reasons beyond any person's comprehension or understanding, Jareth had been designed to clasp Sarah in his embrace – and Sarah had been born to smooth her hands across his wild hair, to cover his sharp face with the softest, the most desperate of kisses.

One century ago, had a prophet come to the Goblin Kingdom and told its King he would be so entranced by a paltry, mortal girl, he would have found the accusation both disgusting and ludicrous. Now, when he laid Sarah across his bed and caught her lips with his, tangled his long fingers in her rich hair, he felt absurdly grateful; like he had been dying of starvation, and here she was to sate him at long,  _ long  _ last. He had bedded women of far greater beauty, for grander character than Sarah Williams – but then no, he hadn't. In some wordless, nameless way, it was  _ she  _ who was the grandest and captured him the most completely. He pulled the gown from her soft skin with tearing hands and shuddered when she did the same to his coat and to his shirt, when she pet her hands down his lithe arms and corded abdomen. Rich, wonderful Sarah kissed his collarbone and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and drew him in, because she knew within her the rightness of this moment, how destined it had been.

Jareth had no idea if this woman loved or hated him – or perhaps both. He felt he knew nothing at all, looking down at her with labored breath, trying to memorize every inch of her soft, pale skin: the rise of her rosy breast, the tight curve of her hip, the redness of her intensely kissable lips and the greenery of her eyes that could have been the ocean for how he felt he may drown at any moment. It was possible she loved  _ and  _ hated him, and right now it really didn't matter which she felt more strongly. He needed her like nothing he had ever needed in his long and ancient life. The King was willing to use and be used tonight, so long as it was Sarah, and with soft insistence, he pressed his mouth to hers and gently moved his hand to the joining of her hips and  _ purred  _ to catch her delicious gasp of pleasure in his mouth. Thirteen years had he waited for, dreamed of this moment. It was far better awake than asleep. He was not rough with her, but he  _ was  _ passionate. He felt too much to be slow or gentle the first time. But Sarah was no blushing, virgin sacrifice: she was a woman, she knew what a man needed and what she herself longed for. 

The Goblin King's fingers grasped his silken sheets as he began to know her in the ways Fate had always meant for him to; though he did not even gasp her name, he felt very vulnerable to each encouraging stroke of her soft hands, each insistent kiss from her full lips. He took her passionately, and Sarah received him with equal fervor, and not a single word was spoken in the King's bed as they made love to one another.

It was like something outside of themselves had driven them into each other's arms when he stepped through that door, like they had warred against an unstoppable force that drove them together, in spite of themselves. It was better to give in, for the both of them.

 

* * *

 

 

Like a deep itch had been satisfied, a need fulfilled after too long a denial –  _ that  _ was what it felt like, the Goblin King decided, as rose and golden light stole into the sanctuary of his bedroom. To his surprise, Jareth didn't mind being awakened. His sharp teeth formed a crooked smile, his strange eyes lay half-hooded by their lids, and he sighed almost  _ contentedly _ , like a cat might purr under the hands of its gentle mistress. He didn't even mind when Sarah stole from the bed, wrapped like a Grecian goddess in one of the bedsheets. Instead, his feral, utterly masculine grin spread over his entire face, and he watched her with great satisfaction; watched where he knew he had put his hands and lips and teeth in certain  _ tasty  _ spots the night before, and enjoyed the recollection. 

Sarah had never been the type for anonymous sex or one-night stands, so she was relieved that she didn't feel...foolish or loose or stupid in the harsher light of the morning. She knew how Jareth was looking at her, the way any man might gaze on a hard-earned conquest – and yet, it was far more than that. Jareth had that annoying talent of doing everything with ten times more intensity than any other man she had ever made the acquaintance of;  _ everything _ with more intensity, she mused, and shuddered a little as she felt his eyes coast up and down her robed figure. She wasn't sure exactly what she was looking for, but she felt just a tad too self-conscious for pillow talk or discussions of what kind of relationship  _ this  _ new development meant, so it made better sense to her to steal from the bed and go looking for  _ something _ .

She was actually relieved Jareth did not bid her good morning, or try for a standard, normal opening as any human male might. Her tension lessened noticeably when he instead directed at her, “I am willing to hazard a guess you'll find something clean to put on in the closet; the goblins are shockingly good at knowing where to put things.”

Sarah turned to him at last, and he felt the core of his body alight with flame. Gods, how beautiful she looked in just that sheet and the knowledge of what lay in wait underneath it. He would take her again, he decided – in the bath or against the wall, he was starving for her body and he would have her again and again and  _ again _ \- “Thanks,” she said with a very small smile, and disappeared into his closet.

The Goblin King sighed, swinging his legs from over the bed and debating whether he should continue to seduce her in his unfettered glory or bear some modesty; he decided on the latter, as innuendo was always more arousing than bawdy display. He slipped into a blue and black dressing gown, but left the belt loose to showcase the pale, hard planes of his chest. Sarah liked his chest, he remembered with a goblin grin. She had kissed and nibbled and moaned into and against it with excessive fervor, and a shiver of pleasure trickled down his spine. The pleasure increased when a thin dress was thrown from the closet door – well, well, did his little minx crave more action, then?

“Jareth.” It seemed not, she was looming in the closet doorway, thin eyebrows dipped in a rather angry looking grimace. She was still wearing the sheet, he was saddened to note.

“Yes, precious thing?” he purred to her, stooping to pick up the silky garment and letting it spill through his fingers: he liked seeing her clothes on his bedroom floor, but it was more satisfying if she put them on first.

“Enough with all the skirts and dresses and old fashioned clothes. I want to wear some  _ pants  _ already.” 

The King stared at his new lover for a moment before doing something that was sure to set her anger alight: he laughed at her. “ _ Sarah _ ,” he scolded in a guffaw, sinking onto the divan by the bed. “You're a  _ girl _ . What would you need with a pair of trousers, hm?”

Sarah  _ was  _ a girl – but she was a  _ modern  _ girl, and she did  _ not  _ look happy to be the source of his amusement. “And what do I need with dresses? Just something that gives you  _ easier access _ ?”

“Mm, that is one  _ excellent  _ benefit, yes.”

The woman stared at him with her icy green eyes for a moment, before she flicked her delicious dark hair over one pale shoulder. “Fine,” she replied, and turned to stalk back into the walk-in closet.

Jareth tilted his head like an owl might, and raised one taut eyebrow. “Fine what?”

“You'll see.”

The King stood, face dipping into a scowl of his own. “I have a feeling I'm not going to like surprises with you.”

“You don't think so?” She was back, and she was wearing-

She was...wearing...

_ His  _ breaches, for a start; a pair made of doe-skin leather, softly fawn in color and buttery and supple to the touch. They hugged each delicious curve of her slender legs with aching closeness, though he noticed they were still far too big for her. She'd pulled the excess around the waist into one long twist (which irritated him, she'd ruin the leather doing things like that) and was securing this with a small, red handkerchief tied around it with a knot. She'd selected one of his shirts as well, tying the cloth into its own knot so that just a peak of the pale skin of her stomach shone through, the sleeves rolled up past her delicate wrists. Drips of lace from the collar fell along her sternum and just highlighted the gap between her breasts.

She was going to ruin his wardrobe and she looked  _ delicious _ .

“Fine,” he conceded, mouth dry and eyes staring, unblinking. “You look better in my clothes than I do.”

“Uh huh.” Sarah flicked her hair again, knowing the kind of picture she presented, and stalked to the door of the boudoir to freshen herself up. “We can trade  _ any  _ time you want, Goblin King.” 

“ _ Or  _ you can accept your own wardrobe as Goblin Queen.” Sarah turned in the doorway, a brush secure in her hand, but was stopped to see him like that; he was no longer in the robe, instead dressed already (how did he do that so fast?) and looking serious and dark and regal. Most importantly, however, his black gloved hand was extended toward her, and pinched between forefinger and thumb was-

Was...a ring. The band gleamed golden in the slowly filtering sunlight, and at its crest was a jewel she could not begin to recognize. It was round, perhaps the size of her thumbnail, and looked a combination of the most perfect earthly diamond and the most glittering opal. It looked like a miniature crystal, she realized, set as it was in the gold.

Sarah gulped a little, mouth dry. Honestly, men had proposed to her before: generally it was drunk cast members at the wrap party, but one of her directors had once been very sincere, even though they hadn't ever even been on a date together. He'd explained she had an air about her that made a man willing to risk his life on a future of happiness with her with very little to guarantee it beforehand – just that kind of magical girl a man  _ had  _ to possess. Sarah always said no, kindly, graciously, blushingly. She wasn't ready to get married, she said, and the part she  _ didn't  _ say was that even if she  _ were _ , they weren't the kind she was willing to make the same gamble on.

Today would be no different.

Slowly, the young woman shook her head. “I'm sorry – but you shouldn't ask me that.”

Jareth huffed with annoyance, not some sad and bleeding broken heart. Sarah was honestly relieved. Had he begun to pine and wail for her, the awkwardness of the situation would have skyrocketed. No, he was the same aloof, irritated Goblin King she knew and lo- well, maybe not  _ loved _ . Knew and liked?

Knew and appreciated.

“I don't  _ have  _ to ask you this, you know,” sharp nose in the air with a put-upon and haughty gesture. “There is nothing that requires it of me, nothing that makes you particularly  _ worthy  _ of the Throne.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I would be well within my rights to keep you as nothing more than my concubine. You really owe me some gratitude.”

“ _ Wow _ , Jareth.” Sarah just stared at him a moment, shaking her head disbelievingly and putting her hands on her hips before marching back into the boudoir to tackle the tangle of her tresses. “You want a pat on the back or something? A gold star? You don't get points for  _ not  _ being an asshole. And by the way, thanks for caring so fucking much about my feelings.”

He leaned into the antechamber doorway, looking her up and down with a slight curl of his thin lips. It was the kind of reaction that she knew would often set his ire off, but he actually didn't look  _ that  _ upset. He was so odd – making passionate love to her in the dark, and a few hours later with the lights on, as cold and temperamental as a December day. It was enough to make a girl dizzy. “I have some business to attend to, but I will be coming to fetch you before the noon hour.”

“To 'fetch,' me?” she asked, a little irritated at the word choice. She was attempting to pull her hair into a rough bun, but curls kept falling out as she tried to pin them into place.

“Yes.” He'd stepped closer to her, so close she could feel his heat, and she gasped a little when his fingers gently touched the stray locks of her hair – and carefully and gently pinned them back for her. “So keep your schedule open, will you, my  _ lover _ ?” he purred in her ear and she fought with the warring emotions of anger and desire. He kissed her on her shoulder before walking straight out of the boudoir and disappearing beyond the bedroom door. “Until the afternoon,” his voice echoed in the room and in her brain. 

 

* * *

 

 

Jareth didn't say a word when he returned to the master suite shortly before the stroke of twelve; instead, he merely took Sarah's hand and led her straight out the door. It actually made her breath catch in her throat a little. Four days just sitting in his bedroom, and suddenly she was walking through the rest of the castle. Given what she'd seen when peeking out the door before, Sarah had expected dark hallways, lined with cobwebs and sprinkled with dust. Yet the passageways Jareth was leading her through were all well lit, straightforward as opposed to twisting, and neither dirty nor damp. It was a short walk, no more than a minute or so, and he released her hand before a high, carved door. Oak leaves, Sarah realized, were etched into the sturdy paneling, and before she could ask any questions, the Goblin King's gloved hands were covering her eyes. “It's a surprise,” he whispered in her ear, and Sarah shivered a little at the sensation.

Hesitantly, the woman's hand gripped the crystal handle of the doorknob and gave it a soft turn. She could feel the change in the air as the door swung open, and Jareth nudged her ankles with the toe of his boot, urging her to step forward. Sarah did so, hands outstretched, but she knew that with Jareth holding her head so close to his chest, there was little chance of falling. Slowly, his cool hands came away from her eyes, and Sarah blinked, rapidly.

A...bedroom suite. It seemed to be as big as Jareth's, or at least nearly so, and where his was dark and deeply colored and just  _ heavy  _ looking, this one was light and airy; the bed linens were all white, the bedspread edged with an eyelet pattern, and the furniture was done in light wood. Crystals hung from delicate strings in the corners of the room, refracting and reflecting the wintery light in a rainbow of colors. She could recognize snowdrops in crystal vases, and a smile touched her red lips. A girl who was more insecure than Sarah Williams would have bristled at this room: Jareth had gotten what he wanted from her, and now she was relegated to separate quarters? But either she was grown up enough, or confident enough, or  _ knew  _ this man well enough to understand the intent behind it. Now that he felt closer to her, he felt he could trust her out of her sight. This was a  _ gift _ .

“It's a lovely room,” she turned to him with a light, easy smile. “It was nice of you to think of me.”

The Goblin King seemed to preen just a little, but he kept his aloof, unaffected mask firmly in place. “Women need separate quarters, for dressing or time to themselves. At least, this is my understanding.”

“It would be nice to have a little room to myself, yeah.”

“However...” Sarah blinked as his gloved fingers intertwined with her bare ones, and the King pulled her a little closer to him; close enough that he could whisper in her ear and she could feel the heat of his breath upon her skin, and shiver a little. “It is my intention to keep you with me at night.”

Sarah refused to be effected by his amorous displays, and instead raised a brown eyebrow at his antics. “Then why is there a bed in here?”

“Oh, if you are fatigued during the day...” He suddenly planted a slow kiss on a soft point of her throat. “Or we choose to use it together.”

The young woman smirked a little, sliding her hand between their bodies in order to wedge him off. “Keeping me as your concubine after all, Goblin King?”

“Only because that is all you will allow me, precious thing. Now,” he suddenly released her, and she briefly missed the warmth of his hand against her palm. “I'm afraid I must return to my duties as a monarch. If you choose to wander, that is up to you, but I would ask you stay in the Castle for the present.” Sarah nodded her assent. “Wag will be by shortly with the afternoon meal, no doubt, and I will see you for dinner.” He bent over her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers.

“His name is Wog.”

“Till the evening, my Sarah.” He did not leave by the door; oh no, ever the flashy Goblin King, he dissolved into the air around her, and the girl could not help but smile a little.

“Who do you think you're impressing?” she addressed the empty space where he had been. “I'm not fifteen anymore, you know.” Still, she tilted her head and took the room in, a smile playing across her lips. “Might as well take a look around, though, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sarah had contented herself for most of the afternoon, to her credit. She examined the wardrobes full of clothes and noted she'd have to really hammer home the point about pants at a later date. She ran her fingers along the spines of ancient looking books on shelves, and she'd even tested the supple softness of the bed. She carried on a conversation with Wog (such as it was) when he brought her a meal of round shrimp swimming in a buttery sauce with a hunk of bread – and mustard, of course – and this was amusing for a time. But the problem was that her mind was in that peculiar state of boredom where no one activity was satisfying. She would begin reading lovely old books with ancient, dry smelling pages, but she couldn't concentrate on the words. She tried on the various lavish gowns and arranged them in ways she found pleasing, but it quickly grew tiresome as opposed to whimsical. Time to face facts, she'd tired of bedrooms. It was time for a little exploration.

After all, Jareth had given her his express permission – and while that was a thought that might normally make Sarah snort with derision at  _ best _ , it  _ was  _ his Castle, and she was his guest, such as her situation was. She still found herself hesitating slightly as she cracked open the bedroom door, peering down the dark hallway. She could see torches flickering in their sconces and wondered what time it was. Her sense of time had gotten entirely screwy since coming to the Underground; lack of daylight, for one thing. Adjusting to a twenty six hour clock, for another. Still, she'd never been one to let fear hold her back, and Sarah strode boldly down the passageway.

Remembering all the things she learned in her first visit to the Goblin Kingdom, Sarah kept her right hand on the smooth stones of the wall, reasoning that if she only made right turns, she couldn't possibly get lost. It was, however, no surprise to her that the Castle beyond the Goblin City was just as labyrinthine as the rest of the Kingdom. She could turn one corner, and suddenly find herself in a perfectly circular entryway, without any corners to have turned through at all. She opened one door and found a wall, opened it again and saw buckets and mops floating patiently, awaiting use.  _ This is nuts _ ... Sarah sighed.  _ Maybe I'm not dead. Maybe I'm just totally schizophrenic.  _

She was about to give up, to sit down in the middle of the floor and wait for rescue, when she turned away from the floating closet – and bumped straight into the figure of a man. She almost gasped out Jareth's name, not knowing any other men in the Underground, but it was very clearly not the Goblin King.

This one was shorter, for a start, only barely as tall as Sarah was. Rather than the unruly shock of Jareth's platinum hair, this man had thick, fluffy locks of a deep, auburn red, and it was much more conservatively cut. His clothes followed this bent as well, looking very officious, but  _ without  _ the tight trousers of the Goblin monarch. In one way, however, they were similar, and it made Sarah stare: they both had very slanted eyes, very...animalistic in their sharpness. This man's, however, were a kind of golden yellow, they caught the light and seemed to throw it right back. Strange eyes indeed, stranger even than Jareth's.

“I-I'm sorry,” Sarah stammered. “I didn't mean to run into you, I'm kind of lost.”

The man gave her a quick once over, and Sarah almost regretted wearing the King's pants. She certainly looked provocative. “I'd ask why there is a mortal in the Castle, but it seems to answer its own question.”

Sarah pursed her lips, but tried to keep her temper in check. “My name is Sarah,” she began again, a soft hand extended.

The strange fellow just stared at it, as though her hand were some foreign object. “Not  _ the  _ Sarah, surely?”

“Depends on who  _ the  _ Sarah is,” she smiled, smoothing her hands over her hips and trying hard not to feel self-conscious. 

The red-haired man simply fixed that yellow gaze on the girl, eyes narrow, mouth scowling. “The girl who rejected her dreams, won back her brother, and solved the Labyrinth.” He seemed to have little patience for this line of inquiry.

“That's me,” Sarah nodded, a little pleased to be known among fey men as well as goblinkind. “I'm afraid I didn't see you on my last...visit.”

“And why should you?” Sarah noticed now that the stranger had a long nose – but in this he was also dissimilar to Jareth. Rather than like a beak, it seemed to come to an almost sharp point, and this point was lifted in the air in obvious disdain. “I don't bother myself with mere  _ runners _ .”

“Hey.” She snapped now; she'd been trying to be polite, but this guy was  _ obviously  _ spoiling for a confrontation. “This mere runner won, and she beat the Goblin King, and I have a feeling you're not half so tough. So if you really want to go, let's go.”

“My word.” A coward, then? He had to be, his yellow eyes had widened in distinct alarm, and he drew away from Sarah, his haughty demeanor significantly diminished. He tried to use his vanity as some kind of shield, for he took a few careful steps back, saying, “I do not have time for this. I have business to attend to.” The craven was scuttling away in the direction he came from, and it was only then Sarah realized she hadn't been able to ask him for directions back to her suite.

“Oh well...” she sighed. “He'd probably try to give me directions to an oubliette.”

“What man would not wish so lovely a lass in a dark, secluded room with him, hm?”

Sarah nearly jumped straight out of her skin, gripping Jareth's silk shirt on her skin at the sound of his voice behind her. She immediately spun, her hand lifted to strike, but the Goblin King caught it with a smirk, pressing a hot kiss along the inside of her wrist. “You scared the hell out of me!”

“Too amusing an opportunity to deny myself, I'm afraid. Of whom were you speaking?”

“I don't know,” she muttered, pulling her hand back once the King released it, rubbing it absentmindedly against the swell of her hips. “Some red-headed jackass who was too  _ important  _ for me.”

“Hm.” Jareth seemed amused, his strange eyes twinkled with a kind of mischief Sarah was starting to get used to. “Sounds like Balgaire, then. Never you mind him, precious thing, he's only my steward. I shall soon set him to rights about who is the superior.”

“Steward?” she repeated it, blinking her green eyes and not even noticing when the fey's hand linked with her own and he began leading her back down the maze of hallways. Had she been paying any attention, she might have noted that Jareth's steps were unerring, his destination apparent and easy to find. It was well she did not notice, however, as it might have only served to annoy her further.

“A steward,” Jareth nodded, turning left to take her back to her quarters. “A majordomo, a head of house, if you will. He ensures things in the Castle run smoothly.”

“No wonder he doesn't like me,” Sarah smirked a little, her lip curling up with just a bit of self-satisfaction. “Since I broke the thing last time.”

Jareth flicked a narrowed glance back at her. “You know, you're really not amusing.”

“Sorry,” but her tone was completely insincere, and the girl was grinning ear to ear. “I have to take my victories where I can get them.”

“Obviously.” The King's tone was still dry as he deftly opened her suite door, and Sarah stepped inside. “Now, I see you became a bit turned around on today's adventure, did you?”

Sarah settled herself in a broad armchair, pretty mouth dipped into a scowl. “You don't have to rub it in, Jareth.”

“And here I thought your sense of direction was so keen?”

“You know, you should be glad I said no to marrying you. I'd be putting you on the couch right about now.”

“Ah.” The Goblin King elegantly placed himself on the ottoman in front of the young woman, his thin mouth still drawn into a smirk. “And what a lonely, sad husband I should be then, hm?”

“Look, Jareth,” Sarah sighed, leaning forward. “Let me say again that I really appreciate all this – helping me with my family, saving me from death, all of it. But what am I doing here? I know what you want from me – but I can't sit around here and be your bed buddy all night and then just kick my heels during the day. And don't,” she warned, lifting her hand as he opened his mouth to speak, “say I could be better occupied as your Queen. I appreciate the thought, but as I've said, I am in  _ no  _ kind of place to be getting hitched. And one nice night doesn't make for a lifelong relationship, alright?”

The King raised one of his arched eyebrows. “A  _ nice  _ night?”

Sarah huffed, blushing slightly. “You know what I mean.”

“I'm afraid I am at a total loss. Do enlighten me, precious.”

“...it was good.”

“ _ Just  _ good?”

“Oh my God,” Sarah rolled her eyes, flopping back in her chair. “You ravaged me senseless, will that satisfy you?”

The Goblin King's grin was positively monstrous. Men, Sarah thought with a sigh, flicking back a stray lock of hair. “For the moment, but only for the moment.”

“Obviously you're trying to settle me in here – and again, I appreciate the gesture. I just...feel like maybe I need a job, or maybe I don't belong in this fairytale castle, or-” She stopped, wisely, noticing the flash and fire in his mismatched eyes.

“You are not leaving, Sarah.”

The girl sighed. She didn't like being treated possessively, but this one really was not worth arguing about, at least right now. “Okay, I'm not leaving.”  _ Not like I'd be going anywhere anyway _ ...

“And if it's occupation you are looking for...something to cheer those beautiful eyes...” He was purring like a cat, running a gloved hand up her leather clad leg, and if she were being honest, it was an electric feeling. “I am happy to provide you with that.”

“ _ Beyond  _ the sexual.”

He snorted lightly. “If you insist.”

“Well...” Sarah hesitated, head tilting in slight curiosity. “What did you have in mind?”

Sarah's breath caught in her throat as he pulled a crystal seemingly out of thin air, watching as it balanced delicately on his fingertips. She wasn't sure if she'd ever get tired of seeing that... “What did  _ you  _ have in mind, Sarah?” His voice was its own kind of spell, stealing across her mind and drawing her in deeply. Her green eyes swam as she gazed into the crystal's opalescent depth, mind reeling with possibilities.

“What... _ I  _ had in...?”

“Anything you want...” Seeing his magnetism was overwhelming her, Jareth's lips pulled into a sharp, smirking smile, and he gestured about the room. “Something you couldn't have in New York, perhaps? A walk-in closet.” He stood and motioned as a door appeared. “An olympic-sized bath?” He snapped his fingers and a glittering cloud of steam rolled out from the bathing room doorway. “A-”

“A dog?”

The Goblin King started, and he almost dropped the crystal. “I beg your pardon?”

Sarah was awake and alert now, as enthusiastic and energetic as if she were still a child. “I couldn't have a dog in my apartment – and I miss having one – and Merlin died a while back, you know?” Her brow suddenly scrunched in thought. “There are dogs in the Underground, right? There have to be, Sir Didymus has one.”

The Goblin King sighed, pinching the bridge of his sharp nose. “I offer to create matter from nothing, anything to dazzle your senses, and you wish for a  _ canine _ ?” Sarah just nodded her assent. “...very well.”

Before Sarah could blink or thank him or make any noise at all, a large box appeared before her, lined with old, wooly blankets. She leaned over to find a mother dog, stretched out with a weary expression on her knowing face, a litter of six puppies climbing and clamoring all over her. Sarah covered her mouth with her hands to keep from squealing: six adorable little fluff balls, mainly a reddish brown in color, though some bore splotches of white or tips of black. They weren't anything like Merlin or Ambrosius, which was too bad, as Sarah had always been fond of shepherd dogs. No, these dogs had elegant paws and pointed noses, softly hanging ears and whip-thin tails. If Jareth told her these were hounds specially bred for the Wild Hunt, she would have believed him.

“I would ask,” he interrupted her cuddly reverie with his dry, unamused voice, “that you only pick  _ one  _ mongrel for the present, will you?”

Sarah nodded, her hands going over each enthusiastic, cavorting little pup. They licked and nibbled her fingers and she felt like she was ten all over again, picking out Merlin from among his litter mates. How long ago that was now...she sighed, her green eyes giving over to a kind of haze, but sensing Jareth's impatience behind her, she at last let her palm rest on one particularly excited little whelp. As soon as she'd made her decision, the box full of mother, brothers and sisters disappeared, and Sarah quickly scooped the little thing against her breast.

Jareth tried to ignore the sense of burning jealousy as  _ his  _ Sarah kissed the top of the dog's smooth little head, or gently tugged on his floppy ears, and otherwise cooed and giggled and adored him. He was not going to be jealous of a dog. It was  _ beneath  _ him. “Have you decided on a moniker for the little fellow?”

Sarah nodded again, eyes bright once more as she stood, the pup still in her arms. “Uh huh. Tristan!”

Jareth snorted just a little. “Let me guess. Like Tristan and Isolde?” Sarah smiled bashfully. “You and your fairy stories.”

“Jareth.” She suddenly lay her small hand on his arm, and her skin felt wonderfully hot to the touch. The King looked from her grip upon him to the intense and sincere look in her eyes. “Thank you for this. Really.”

He blinked briefly, before a casual smile graced his lips and he pulled the puppy from her, gently placing the dog Tristan on the floor. “Thank me,” he replied in his smooth, tenor way, “by being my company for dinner this evening. Ah,” he stopped as she began to nod, a finger to his lips. “Maybe change attire first – not that I don't love knowing my clothes are touching you in the most  _ intimate  _ of ways, but you may cause a bit of a stir.”

Sarah's lips pursed and her brow furrowed. He wasn't always so charming as he thought he was.

 


	6. Chapter Six

* * *

 

 

_See you there, don't know where you come from_

_Unaware of the stare from someone_

_Don't appear to care that I saw you_

_And I want you._

  * “Say When,” The Fray”




 

* * *

 

 

He was trying to keep her there.

Sarah hadn't noticed it so much at first. She had  _ thought  _ maybe Jareth was respecting her, learning about her, when things had changed between them. He'd given her this room, after all. He was quite open with her wandering the Castle, and the goblins were...oddly sweet. Mostly they kept their distance, but if she spoke to them, they answered back as best they could. Wog was her particular companion, the wrinkly faced creature happy to give her a tour through the halls; the Library had been her favorite spot. She had been directed by a strange goblin, one that could speak in full sentences and more or less managed to dress himself, to one book that she had thought was entirely blank – until she thought of what she might like to read, at which point the pages filled with text. It was downright magical. For a time, Sarah was happy.

That damn Goblin King made himself absolutely  _ charming  _ while Sarah transitioned into life in a fairytale castle. He ordered fine dinners for them in the grand dining hall, music played without any seeming source. Sarah thought once he had wanted to ask her for another dance, but he hadn't, and she was almost disappointed. And at night, God....When Sarah thought back to nights in his room, she had to close her eyes and pause for a moment. Jareth was.... _ intense _ . She was an adult, she'd had sexual relationships before. The Goblin King was threatening to blow all previous competition right out of the water. If she were being totally honest, she  _ liked  _ the sex. A lot. 

But she should have noticed right away, that possessive glint in his strange eyes, the way his hand would tighten at her waist when he guided her from one place to the next. It should have been  _ particularly  _ obvious when she'd appeared at his chamber door holding the hound pup, Tristan. “Not in here, love.” His voice had been gentle, and it was gently that he pulled the puppy from her hands and set him on the floor of the hallway.

“He's a baby!” Sarah protested as her loyal dog cried at her feet. “He needs to be with people right now.”

“He'll be fine in the hallway for one night. Better he learns the rules now.”

“ _ What  _ rules?”

“This is the King's Suite.” His voice was low and soft as he took her open, empty hands and lightly pulled her into the bedroom – and shut the door on the whining puppy dog. “It's for no one but the King and Queen. No dogs, few servants – not even our future children will disrupt us here. It's for you and I.”

_ That  _ should have been enough to wake her out of her grief-and-awe muddled senses. It was almost creepy (well, totally creepy), talking about future children, of her as a Queen, when she still said no to his proposals. She could really be quite dense sometimes, Sarah upbraided herself.

He wanted to  _ own  _ her.

Sarah Williams was not a girl to be owned – to be  _ ruled _ . The Goblin King, above all people, should have figured that out long before.

So while Jareth's charms grew even greater as the days passed, Sarah's enjoyment of them dimmed considerably, and all the time. In fact, she was beginning to resent them. She began to push at him, in little ways. “Where are my old friends?” she'd asked him as he spent the lunch hour in her set of rooms. “I haven't seen Hoggle and Sir Didymus since I left the Aboveground. I want to go out and visit them.”

“All in due time, my sweet,” he assured her, and followed it with, “Look at the present I have for you today, hm?” Each day he brought more and more lavish gifts: perfumes as delicate and rich as pearls one night; a necklace of flawless diamonds the size and color of robin's eggs another. If he thought he could pay her off with such paltry gifts, he really was a fool. Jareth would attempt jokes. “When will you make an honest man out of me and be my wife, you brazen creature?” She laughed, but it made her all the more wary.

Well, no more of that. More than a week of digging in the library had gotten her a map of the Goblin Kingdom (though it was little use for the Labyrinth, as the walls kept shifting all the time, even on the paper), and even one of the Goblin City. She'd put on the trousers she'd stolen from Jareth's closet and had Wog show her the way out the Castle doors.

It was high time for adventure.

 

* * *

 

 

“Sawah?”

“My lady!”

Sarah had never had a great sense of direction – that had made her trip through the Labyrinth that much more challenging – but perhaps it was a part of growing up or living in New York, but she had no trouble finding her friends whatsoever. It was like the most natural thing in the world, it felt like the perfect extension of herself; she knew what she wanted to find, though not how to find it, and that alone had been enough to act like a guiding star to send her straight to her childhood friends. Without hesitation, Sarah threw herself into Ludo's massive, hairy, dangling arms. He smelled a bit of mold and dog and earth and  _ magic _ , just like he had whenever he managed to step through the mirror into her apartment in Hell's Kitchen. “Ludo, I've missed you!”

“Sawah back!”

“Sarah?” Alerted by the noise, around the bend came Hoggle, wielding a pair of pruning sheers. He nearly went white was a ghost at the sight of the woman. “Sarah, are you out of your head! Jareth will know you're in the Labyrinth, we have to get you back as soon as-”

“Hoggle.” Sarah extradited herself from Ludo's grip, going on her knees before her oldest and dearest friend. “He already knows I'm here.”

“ _ What _ !” The poor dwarf looked nearly apoplectic. “And what is that getup you're in!”

“Friend Hoggle is right, dear lady!” Sir Didymus interjected by her hand, waving his staff in his excited agitation. “It is quite unsafe for you in this world, and we have been most concerned for you!”

“That's right! Where have you been!” Hoggle was still scolding, dropping his pruning sheers and looking the girl over. “We went to your mirror. Them brownies just kept nattering on that you'd gone – wouldn't say where, wouldn't say a word! Your things were all packed up as well!”

“Right,” she sighed, running her free hand through the mess of her dark hair. “That  _ does  _ require a bit of an explanation...” Sarah had always been a good storyteller, it was an innate part of her, something that served her well in the theater. Her three friends sat in gracious silence, hearing her tale and digesting it in their own unique ways.

Didymus was the first to speak, as he often was. “If it was to save Sir Toby, my lady, naught else could be done!”

“Horse feathers.” Hoggle shook his large head; it was just like Sarah to plunge ahead into things without thinking the consequences through. “You've plum lost your sense, you have.”

“Maybe,” Sarah admitted with a weak smile. “But what's said is said, right? I'm here now....A-and look on the bright side! I'll be able to spend time with you all!”

“Jareth will never go for that,” the gardener disagreed once more. “Send us all straight back to the Bog he will.”

“I don't  _ care  _ what Jareth goes for.” Sarah's green eyes were alive with the determined fire her fairytale friends knew just all too well. “Whatever he says, he's not the boss of me, and he can go stuff it. We're friends – and we're sticking together.”

“Hear, hear!”

“Sawah fwend.” Ludo draped his large arms around her shoulders and Sarah just leaned back into his great, auburn mass of fluff, smiling at Hoggle all the while. The dwarf looked decidedly uneasy. But then again, there was no stopping Sarah Williams; when she decided something, then it was decided.

 

* * *

 

 

It was difficult to hide a rock caller the size of Ludo. He wasn't exactly subtle. And even when told to hush, Sir Didymus could be quite the talker. It didn't take long for His Majesty to find out who, exactly, the woman was entertaining in her suite while he was away running the Kingdom.

“Sarah, if that  _ beast  _ ever sets foot inside my Castle again, I will make a  _ rug  _ out of it, and then I will  _ take you _ on that rug!”

“You do that, and I'll cut off all this hair you love  _so_ much; I'll throw every jewel you've ever given me into the Bog of Eternal Stench; and then so help me God, I'll figure out a way to kill myself!”

That gave him some pause. Only the Goblin King could look bemused – maybe even  _happy –_ when Sarah won their arguments of one-up-man-ship. “Oh, not your  _hair_ , precious thing,” he cooed, running a glossy lock between his gloved fingers. “That would truly be too great a waste.”

“Ugh! Trust you to focus on what's important!” Sarah batted at his hand, wheeling to stomp away from him. Jareth did not drop his amused, lazy smile. “Ludo is my  _friend_ ,” she was continuing, turning back to him and arms crossed, her pretty red mouth set in a scowl that perfectly offset his own indolent smirk. “I  _live_ here, he should be able to come and see me here. Moreover, maybe  _you_ could have a little sympathy while I adjust to a totally new life!”

That  _did_ make him bristle. “ _No one_ ,” he hissed, sliding up very close to her, so that he could look down into her green gaze, which wavered slightly. “Could be  _more_ generous than I have been with you.”

...this one wasn't worth the fight. The motion may or may not have been sincere, but Sarah dropped her eyes, which did quite a great deal to mollify him. “You're right,” she replied quietly.

“ _Well_ now...was that really so hard?”

She glanced up at him, red lips slightly pursed. “Don't push your luck.”

“But I so long to see just how grateful you are...”

“Let's cut to the point, Jareth,” Sarah hissed slightly, refusing to be drawn in by his seductive tones this time. “All these proposals of yours – what are they really about? You haven't changed since I left the Labyrinth. You're still trying to rule me.”

“Of course I am.” The gall of that man, he didn't even flinch away from her accusations. No, Jareth stood in her bedroom and continued to play with her dark hair with rapturous fascination. The pup Tristan lay on a pillow in the corner, sleepily ignoring the scene; he was now quite used to the strange man who came to visit his mistress. “Did you think I would not? It is only the great that is worth conquering; you and your fire, your strength...were I to best you, what a prize that would be.”

Jareth moved to pull her into his arms, to kiss her, but Sarah put her hands up as a wedge between them and was just able to turn away. “I wouldn't let you do that.”

The Goblin King snorted slightly, vaguely amused and irritated simultaneously. “It wouldn't be much of a conquest if you did.”

“Let's say you win, what then?”

“Then I stand as the happiest man alive, don't I?” The King was sighing, adjusting the way his leather gloves fit around his hand. “I will be powerful, with a beautiful woman who is devoted to me. Who wouldn't want that?”

“I would bore you if I were conquered, I'd be nothing like I am.”

“Not true.” He must have been offended, maybe even frightened by this – for his hand shot out and his fingers held her chin in an almost bruising grip. Sarah struggled briefly before she listened. “I said conquer, I did not say break. I am not the monster you seem to think me.”

“Uh, you just threatened to turn Ludo into a rug. And what, you mean you'd be alright with me as your equal?”

“Well, nearly so. You  _ are  _ a girl, after all.”

“I am going to find a way to knee you in the junk, I swear I am.”

“ _ Sarah _ .” He cooed and turned her quickly, so that his arms could wrap around her torso. “Don't do  _ that _ . It hurts you as well as it hurts me, since I'd be unable to perform for you – wouldn't that be tragic?”

She struggled against his arms. “It's not funny, Jareth, let go.”

He did not, and in fact, his grip around her only tightened, and his thin mouth bent to the level of her ear. “ _ I will not share you, Sarah Williams _ ,” he whispered fiercely in her ear. “I won you,  _ I  _ saved you, not your precious little...” He nearly spat the next word, “ _ Friends _ . I have you for all eternity, and I  _ will  _ win you.” 

Sarah stiffened at first, but then had the wisdom to relax into his arms. She felt the tension leave his muscles, and she inwardly smiled. He was so simple, when it came straight down to the matter. “I'm not a prize.”

“You are the  _ greatest  _ prize. You ought to have learned by now what a stubborn man I can be.”

“I can be stubborn, too, you know.”

“Believe me, I do.”

Sarah turned her head over her shoulder, so that she could just see the edge of his face; the sharp point of his nose and the wild, possessive glint in his strange eyes. So dangerous and so beautiful. Damn, had she learned nothing in her thirteen years away from him? “Jareth-”

“Majesty!” There was someone at the door – and not a goblin, so that certainly narrowed down the possibilities. The face Sarah recognized; sharp, with deeply set eyes and thick, red hair. That steward fellow, then. He came to a bit of a startled halt to see his monarch with his arms around a mortal woman.

Jareth simply raised an eyebrow. “Balgaire. I thought I made it plain I was not to be interrupted.”

The smaller man stammered slightly. “A thousand apologies, Your Majesty, but the little beasts have broken into the portrait hall  _ again  _ and don't listen to a word I say-” 

He did not get a chance to finish his pleas for assistance from his master, but equally true, Jareth did not have time to upbraid him. The pup Tristan had picked his head up from his soft pillow, at first blinking sleepy brown eyes and sniffing the air – before he leaped to his petite paws and began barking fit to rouse the hunt. His little howl was high pitched and, to Sarah's mind, quite  _ adorable _ , but the tiny thing charged forward with all the gusto of an older, experienced hound.

Before his mistress could react to him, however, Tristan had made for the steward's polished black boots. The smaller man gave a hiss that was enough to curdle the woman's blood, and right before her eyes, he seemed to leap into the air. Those black boots became black tipped paws, the white of his shirt an apron of snowy white fur. And that thick auburn hair of his? It dusted the man – well, former man – all over, and from Sarah's room ran a  _ fox _ ; a fox with three tails, hightailing it down the hall with a high pitched wail of distress, while the puppy gave enthusiastic and deadly serious chase. She looked straight up at Jareth, who seemed bemused by the scene that had just unfolded before him. “Did you see....he was a-!”

The King released the young woman, still with that terrible, crooked smile. “Yes, quite.”

“ _ How _ ...what is he!”

“Ah, Balgaire is a...” The Goblin King seemed genuinely thoughtful. “His type of magic is difficult to translate. The easiest analogy I can think of is the kitsune, from Japanese lore.”

Sarah stuck her head out the door, still hearing the yipping of her puppy echoing against the stones. “He's a stuck up prick, but that's  _ incredible _ !”

“Incredible?” Jareth pulled her back by the hips. “You've never described  _ my  _ magics as such, and I can assure you, they are far more powerful.”

Miss Williams just rolled her eyes. “I am not dealing with your petty jealousy today, got it? That means no threatening to skin my friends, no  _ nothing _ .”

His eyes flashed. “Until you  _ are  _ my wife, I don't see how you can claim to give  _ any  _ orders.”

“ _ You _ ,” she jabbed a finger into his chest, “have a gallery to save. I have to go fetch my dog before he chews on your steward.”

Jareth waved his hand dismissively. “Balgaire is no kit, he has teeth and claws well up to your fluffy knight.”

“That makes it  _ worse _ !”

He kissed her over her protests and blinked away. “Find me in the Throne Room and we can discuss whose magic is  _ incredible _ .”

 

* * *

 

 

It took pockets full of biscuits pulled from the Castle kitchens and close to an hour to call Tristan back. The pup was still learning commands, and was easily distracted with his overabundant enthusiasm. There was no sign of Balgaire, but frankly, Sarah found that to be a relief. It was fairly obvious to her that the steward didn't like her, though his reasons against her seemed fairly snobbish. But was it because she was a human, or was it because she was sleeping with the King? She'd rather hear Balgaire was a racist than find out he saw her as some kind of...some kind of s-

Sarah's self-flagellating thoughts were interrupted by a bang from down the long, stone corridor. Tristan wiggled in her grasp, but Sarah was too curious, she had always had an inquisitive nature; and so, without a second thought, she stepped cautiously down the hall, head high, eyes gleaming with interest. The sound was coming from the huge, carved doors to the Throne Room. Jareth had said to find him here, and it sounded like wild, raucous music was coming from inside. Was this what he had in mind, to show off his magic with art? Without hesitation, Sarah pushed the heavy door open.

Her jaw just about hit the ground: goblins, everywhere, were dancing and singing wildly. They threw each other about the room with reckless abandon, and seemed to be lost in fits of absolute joy. And who was in the middle of it, perched idly on one curved arm of his throne, but the Goblin King, of course? His voice was clear and robust over the din, the leader of this bunch of insanity – or rather, he actually seemed to be the one keeping it in some form of control. Music to soothe the savage beast? From what Sarah could tell, it was a nonsense song, something about dancing, but the goblins took to it with enthusiasm, singing and stopping in perfect timing to their monarch's musical cues. For some reason, what amazed her the most was the guitar set across his knee, and the way his fingers, clad in skin-tight leather, strummed the strings with idle but practiced movements. It really felt like there was magic in the music.

The magic, however, came to an abrupt halt as his mismatched eyes caught hers over the chaos all around them. His hand almost faltered on the guitar, but he brought the song to a rousing conclusion. Goblins fell in heaps about the Throne Room, tongues lolling on the ground, spent with their excitement of the day. Their King stood and the guitar vanished in a puff of glittering smoke from his elegant hands. “Right.” He kicked a few of the little beasts out of his path as he descended from the throne, nearer to Sarah by the door. “There will be no more nonsense in the portrait gallery, or there will be no more songs. Are we clear?”

“ _ Majesty _ !” They whined. It seemed a greater threat to them than the Bog of Eternal Stench. Sarah found it almost....cute. “Please, no take away songs!”

“One more, one more!”

“I am your  _ King _ , not your performing monkey. Out, all of you.” They still whined piteously, but dragged themselves from the room, humming snatches of the tune or prancing excitedly with their companions. Sarah watched them all go; she'd never seen goblins looking so...mollified. They were even carrying their many black hens from the Throne Room and one led a small, black pig in goblin armor on a chain leash. She didn't have time to watch more closely, however, for she could feel Jareth's stare boring into her. Almost hesitantly, her eyes met his. “Well?” he demanded, hands tucked behind him at the small of his back.

Sarah set Tristan down and copied the movement. “Well?”

Jareth did not look amused. “I'm sure you have something to say, you always do.”

The girl blinked. “You  _ told  _ me to meet you here.”

“That is  _ not  _ what I was referring to, and you bloody well know it.”

“No, I don't!” Sarah paused a moment – before a wonderful grin spread across her lovely face. “Don't tell me you're  _ shy  _ about your music, Jareth.”

The King bristled. “I refuse to be  _ teased _ .”

“Is that how you keep the goblins in line? With music?”

“ _ Sometimes _ .” His voice was a hiss, his eyes narrowed. “They're simple little cretins; usually when they're making mischief, it means they require occupation.”

Sarah tried to suppress her smile, but failed. She straightened her back a little and replied, “Well, I think it's adorable.”

The Goblin King was not soothed by this, and he stalked closer to her. “ _ That  _ comment is close enough to mocking for me to be well within my rights to shove you deep into an oubliette.” 

Sarah just put her hands at her hips. “Were you going to wow me with your magic or just snarl at me?  _ I  _ didn't know this was a  _ private  _ event. You didn't have a 'Keep Out,' sign.”

Jareth blinked at her a moment before a grin spread across his features. “Oh, I had nearly forgotten. How sweet of you to remind me, precious thing.”

“Yeah, well, apparently not.”

“I have a gift for you.” Very few words were as likely to set off Sarah's sense of panic as those, and she nearly stumbled backwards out of the door, but was stopped by Jareth's outstretched hand, something bright and red balanced on his fingertips.

“...is that a strawberry?”

His thin lips were pulled back in a crooked smile, just showing off the sharp edges of his teeth. “Indeed it is.”

“Jareth, I'm not sure if you understand this, but I'm a little reluctant to take fruit from you – especially here.”

“Ah, the location bothers you?” She swore he hadn't moved a muscle, but the world bled and dripped around them like running paint, and Sarah's head swam as she found her surroundings re-materialize into – oh, for Heaven's sake, his  _ bedroom _ .

Sarah fixed him with a hard look. “You realize this does not make me feel better, right? I meant I didn't like taking fruit from you in the Underground at  _ all _ .”

“There's no danger here,” he assured her with a sly, victorious grin. “No time limit, nothing to hurt you, nothing to fight against. I'm just showing off for you – in simple ways, ones that are....easy to digest.”

“Wow, you actually put thought into this.”

“Indeed I did, my precious thing.” Before Sarah could say another word, he'd taken a definitive step forward, blocking her with his body. He leaned forward and she  _ tried  _ to lean away, but all that accomplished was a loss of her balance, and she plopped back right onto the bed. As soon as Sarah's lips parted in annoyed protest, he pressed the strawberry against her teeth and let it bleed its juices into her mouth – which he followed with a kiss.

She wasn't sure if the bite was too little, or maybe the fruit was too small, or maybe he just wasn't trying to drug her so heavily as he had with the peach, but the swimming feeling in her head wasn't so bad this time. Oh, the vision of his face before her danced and shimmered and was just as disorienting, but she didn't find herself trapped in a crystal dream. No, she merely closed her eyes for a moment, and saw clouds of glorious and glittering white. Birds fluttered past her at an impossible height, and dear God, she was flying! She could feel the wind in her hair, the cool freedom of the atmosphere around her. Was this what it was like for Jareth as an owl? It was thrilling, it was exhilarating, it was-

Over. Sarah opened her eyes, but other than a slight throb at her temples....everything was normal. She wasn't in some sugar-spun dress, she wasn't lost in junk heaps – she even still had her memory. And Jareth was smiling at her. “Do you think Balgaire could compress such a vision into a single strawberry for your amusement?”

Sarah rubbed at her head and gave him a bit of a cold look. “Are you seriously this sensitive?”

“Poor little sprout.” The Goblin King kissed her temple. “Not having magic of your own, I suppose this will be a bit strenuous for you. But I promise you won't be hurt. Here, try this one.” He was holding up a perfectly round, smooth, bright green grape to her – but Sarah shook her head.

“I got the picture.”

“Oh, please?” His thin mouth actually managed to pout – but it was less endearing and more devious on him. “I did put  _ such  _ work into these.”

“Jareth, I-” That goddamn bastard, he just popped it into her mouth all over again! Sarah felt the skin break against her teeth, felt the overly sweet juice pool on her tongue; this time her head hit the pillow with the intensity of the magic. Dark, the world was dark. Giant trees loomed overhead and blocked out the light of the moon – but that didn't matter, because she had eyes to see through the darkness, to catch the faintest glimmer and the dimmest shadow. Her body didn't move like a human body, perhaps because it was not, and she could feel every pump of her heart, every stretch of her muscles. And it felt  _ wonderful _ . Deliciously free, she could feel the warm wind of the night streaming through her hair, wild and lonely and liberating. Oh, but not alone....as she moved through these wondrous trees of darkness, she could see another shadow join her, feel its heat. A partner in an ancient dance, she could just make out its shape. A challenger as well as a protector, an opponent and a mate. If he wanted to win her, he would have to be swift, be deadly, be strong-

Sarah groaned, her eyes wincing as the candlelight hit them this time. “I get it, you're amazing, but my head is  _ killing  _ me.” What kind of a vision was that, anyway? Some prototypical start of the world, something about how magic was made? She didn't get it, and right then, she didn't  _ want  _ to get it – at least, until she noticed Jareth was leaning over her, his eyes focused on her face and breathing heavy. Was he seeing these as well? Whatever he'd gotten of the vision, it seemed to affect him far more deeply, for he was stroking his palm along the curve of her cheek.

“Just one more, and I promise you'll sleep after. But I saved the best for last – a real dream, a  _ true  _ one.”

“What do you mean, a true one...”

“Those were just little fancies...stray bits of magic pulled from the atmosphere, things that can be, or were, or are. This one...this one will show you what you desire most.”

Sarah shook her head. “What I desire most is some Tylenol.”

“ _ Sarah _ .” He said her name with such intensity that she had to look, had to see him twist his hand and-

“ _ No _ .” Her lips were sealed, and she was absolutely adamant. “For your information, I  _ hate  _ peaches.”

“A little bite,” he purred, dancing the fruit across his fingers. “I've already promised that this one will be nice, won't it? Think of all the things you could see...all the things you want.”

“What if what I want, I can't have?”

“Then at least you'd have  _ this _ .”

Sarah was going to keep arguing with him – that yes, thank you, she understood he was just  _ so  _ freaking magical and she wouldn't say anything but compliments of him and his skills ever again – but she had a thought. A rather clever, even  _ genius  _ thought. Without a word of warning, her legs wrapped and locked around his slender hips and she twisted so that his balance was thrown and he landed on his side. Before the Goblin King could snarl or protest or purr, the woman was atop him, stroking her fingers through his silky hair. His eyes half closed and she pulled the peach from his fingers, dangling it in her own. “No trapping me in my dreams this time?”

Jareth was panting, his lips parted with desire. “You have my vow – why settle for a dream when I have you here, hm?”

“You make an excellent point....” Sarah ran the soft fuzz of the fruit against her glossy lower lip, moving her hips slightly against the Goblin King; she almost grinned at the helpless moan that escaped his throat. “Hmm...dreams without consequences?”

“Well...” He leaned his hips into her, let her feel his interest. The girl raised an eyebrow at him. “You'll be faced with what you truly want, but that can be a blessing, don't you think?”

“Oh, totally...” Sarah leaned forward so that he was afforded a tantalizing view down the cut top of her bodice. He was growing more heated beneath her. “I can think of all kinds of things I want...but  _ you _ , Goblin King? You're so mysterious...”

Jareth was growling, reaching out a hand to pull her harder against him, but she knocked his arms away. “I would think I was being quite clear.”

“Oh, this is what you want right now...but what could you possibly want with me  _ forever _ , hm? You've never really been forthright on that...”

“Take a bite, and then we can have a  _ long  _ discussion on it.”

“Really? Well...” Her lips parted, her white teeth just touched the skin of the fruit. Jareth leaned forward, mouth open in anticipation.

Sarah grinned and shoved it fully into his open mouth, watched the skin tear against the sharp point of his teeth and saw him bite down out of defensive reflex. The King made a kind of protesting, strangled noise, but the lump of fruit had already quickly made it past his tongue. He was glaring even as Sarah kept beaming in perverse triumph – but his hot looks didn't last for long. In half a moment, she watched those dozy eyes of his close and saw his head hit the pillow with a soft, “ _ whump _ .”

“Hmph.” Miss Williams slid off her lover's prone torso, watched the even swell of his chest as he breathed peacefully in slumber. “About time you got a serious taste of your own medicine, Goblin King.” An evening free of Jareth's possessive B.S., without him trying to buy her with gifts or growl about how he didn't like her friends. It would be a positive  _ delight _ . 

The young woman had nearly skipped to the bedroom door, quite pleased with her little victory over the oh-so-tricky Goblin King – but her hand hesitated as soon as she touched the door jamb. Without quite knowing why, she rotated on her heels a little and watched his quiet figure in the massive bed. As deadly and certain as Jareth was, he almost manage to look  _ innocent  _ while he was asleep – but only almost. Sarah had never woken in the night to watch him beside her, she didn't think their relationship had reached that level of intimacy yet. But it somehow felt  _ wrong  _ to drug him and then leave him alone – not that he didn't thoroughly deserve it. But....well, she was better than that, wasn't she?

Sarah took a few small, almost hesitant steps closer to her fallen foe and just looked at his pale, peaceful face. A glimmer of peach juice still clung to his lower lip, and if she'd been stupider or more romantic, she might have kissed it off. But she'd had quite enough of trippy dreams for one night, so that was right out. Brow furrowed, she directed at the sleeping man, “You're not as tough as you think you are.” This was probably true, but Jareth gave no retort to her comment. Oh, damn it. She could be so stupidly sentimental sometimes. She couldn't leave that dumb owl alone; instead, she settled down in his lounge chair to pass the time away reading. Hopefully he'd learn his lesson when he awoke.

 

* * *

 

 

“That is such a lovely compliment.”

A compliment. They were calling it a compliment. Toby's fists tightened around the rail of the crib, his teeth ground together in a way that made his jaw nearly scream with pain, but he didn't much care. It was only a baby, a red-faced little girl with wrinkly hands and chubby cheeks lying on the mattress of the crib, but the teenage Toby  _ hated  _ her.

Aunt Heidi was his mother's sister. Aunt Heidi and Uncle David, the Morgans, at long last with a little girl all their own. A complete family, everyone cooed – everyone but Toby Williams. Heidi was younger than her sister Karen, but she was having her child later in life in the same way. It was better that way for women with careers, even if it was a little more difficult. But all the discomfort and the waiting had been worth it for their perfect little pearl of a girl, for their Faith.

Faith  _ Sarah  _ Morgan.

And Mom and Dad were calling it a  _ compliment _ .

Aunt Heidi had been seven months pregnant at Sarah's funeral, but she wasn't even  _ related  _ to the dead young woman. Oh, they were family of a sort, extended and through marriage, and it was right that the Morgans be there to support the Williams family in their most dire hour of need. But what bright idea had gotten into their heads – that it would be an  _ honor  _ to Sarah to grant  _ their  _ smelly, stupid little baby  _ her  _ name – Toby would never know or understand. “A compliment,” said Mom.

“A very nice gesture to Sarah,” said Dad.

When Robert had been driving his son home from school, the teenager broke into an angry frenzy of emotion as many teenage boys often do. “Dad, they barely even  _ knew  _ Sarah! This stupid baby has never gotten to meet her!”

“Toby, the baby is your  _ cousin _ .”

“This isn't  _ helping _ ! It's....it's  _ co-opting _ her memory,” he struggled as best he could through his tangle of feelings and whatever words from his lit class he thought might help his case. 

“Toby...” Robert Williams just sighed and shook his head at his only son. “People deal with grief in different ways....your Aunt Heidi and Uncle David...they're trying to show their support for us – for your mom – by celebrating Sarah with a  _ life _ . This is hard on  _ all  _ of us, but try to take this in the spirit in which it was intended.” 

Toby tried – maybe, he supposed. He thought he did, anyway. But as he looked down into the crib, all he could see was his family's attempt to  _ replace  _ his sister. A stupid, useless,  _ fucking baby _ could never replace  _ Sarah _ . Even when the thing got older, would she have his sister's strength, her sense of fun and fantasy? Would she be able to tell stories like Sarah or sing songs like Sarah or just  _ be there when he needed her _ , like  _ Sarah  _ did? No. The answer was a great, big, obvious,  _ fat  _ no.

So Mom and Dad talked with Aunt Heidi and Uncle David in the nursery, and the sisters shared tips about getting a baby to sleep at night, and Toby sat on the back patio in the freezing cold of early March and listened to his headphones – and hated the world.

 


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is as much as I have written so far, so hereafter, the fic will be updated at the same time as it is on ff.net (user shadow131 over there). So many things to write, so little time!  
> The dress I mention in detail for Sarah is based on the one worn by Jennifer Connelley at the London premier of “Noah.” Seriously, Google it. I think it's weird (I think most Hollywood fashion is weird), but it's definitely a Goblin Queen gown. I mean, just look at the feathers!

* * *

 

 

_Turn around_

_And you're walking toward me_

_I'm breaking down_

_And you're breathing slowly_

_Say the word,_

_And I will be your man,_

_Your man,_

_Say when_

  * “Say When,” The Fray




 

* * *

 

 

The Goblin King had never been sick a day in his long and illustrious, even infamous life, so the fact that he now had a slight pounding at the temples was quite unusual. Novel, even. His unmatched eyes were closed in a wince against the suddenly too-bright light, and his gloved fingers were massaging his scalp as he groaned very slightly and to himself. A headache...usually he would have blamed the goblins, but he had a feeling niggling away in the back of his being that laid the blame squarely at Sarah's feet.

Sarah...What had he been doing? How irritating, his mind always distracted by that fretful mortal child. Well, not a child anymore, and his thin lips curved at the edges into a goblin smile. Sarah Williams, all a woman, and so worth the wait...he had been with her just a moment ago, had he not? The Goblin King opened his eyes and was relieved to note that the light did not assault his senses. He felt....fine, mostly. The headache was subsiding. He was standing in his bedroom, fully dressed, and that all seemed appropriate enough, but he could have  _ sworn  _ he had come here because of Sarah...looking for Sarah or getting something for Sarah or  _ tempting  _ Sarah; it always came down to her.

It felt very far away, but he could hear the striking gong of a clock from down the halls of the Castle. The thirteenth hour – and it was afternoon, for it was far too bright for it to be the middle of the night. Had Court Hours come so soon? Time to deal with his rowdy subjects as they presented grievances or asked permission or simply capered and cavorted as they most usually did. Damn it. With any luck, the headache would not worsen.

But the Castle was  _ unusually  _ quiet as he strode through the great stone corridors of his private chambers. His boots made their customary, echoing tap as he walked, but he heard no belching, squealing, screaming goblins as he neared the Throne Room, either. That was all very strange, maybe even cause for alarm. Even so, his black gloved hand did not hesitate when it touched the great, carved handle of the Throne Room door, either. No, he pulled it open with one swift, easy motion, intending to march straight in to claim his seat at the center of the chaos – but at the threshold, hesitated.

It was....almost empty. There were a few of his rowdy subjects, scattered here and there, but they were in the process of sweeping up stray feathers and garbage, or were polishing the thrones-  _ thrones _ ?

“Darling!” The King wheeled on the heels of his sharp boots, his misaligned pupils a shade larger than was usually seen.  _ Sarah _ ? No doubt it was the same face, the same voice, and she was  _ smiling _ . Not that quiet, calm way he often saw her when she was curled up in his chair with a book, or when she scratched the goblin Wig under his nubbly chin; no, this was a beam, a brightness of being that was caused by and directly for his benefit alone. She walked towards him, and he felt himself swallow a little harder than he was used to. This Sarah-Not-Sarah laid a smooth and delicate hand against the muscles of his chest and said in a soft voice, “I was worried I was going to have to wake you...did you sleep late, my beloved?”

Jareth said nothing for quite some time. What  _ could  _ he say? He'd afforded Sarah a considerable wardrobe, now that she was his, all his; but this particular item he could never remember having seen  _ ever  _ before. The bodice was all black lace, connected by pale pink chiffon rosettes. They made her flawless skin appear all the paler in comparison, and the skirt was entirely done in black feathers. She looked...

“...areth? Are you feeling alright?”

“What?” He was roused from his distraction by her voice, by her soft hand pressed against his forehead. His eyes shuttered for a moment at the contact and then opened again to look at her once more.

Those eyes of hers looked at him like he was the only thing worth seeing, and it was both tremendously gratifying and also  _ hunger  _ inducing, in the most visceral and thorough of ways. “You're lost in your own little world today, my husband...” 

He felt himself choke slightly again, but...was not entirely sure why. “Nevertheless...” It was all he could mutter. His head was feeling heavy again, like mutton. “It is time to start the day's tasks.”

“ _ Nonsense _ ...” Sarah's soft hands left his face, traveled down his arms, and when they had finished teasing the tips of his fingers, they found a home at the bony point of his narrow hips. It felt  _ electric  _ just noticing the heat from her body passing into him. “There's nothing so pressing it can't be done by someone lesser than yourself...Should a King clean the stables, or should a stable boy?”

“It's quite charming, when you put it that way.”

The woman snapped her fingers, and what few goblins  _ were  _ in the Throne Room left it – for once. The silence was entirely too pleasant; but Sarah's hands were back at his hips again, and it was by the hips she gently led him back, back toward the seat of his throne. It was then he remembered the second chair, and his eyes gave a quick scan to the side. Yes, a throne to match his own, all bone and ivory, with a velvet drape of royal blue, instead of purple. Most notably of all, however, was the fact that it was just a few inches lower than his own, a submissive place, and he felt himself already beginning to purr. What had he been thinking? All was  _ entirely  _ right with the world...

“Jareth...” Sarah's hands were at his shoulders again, gently guiding him down to his seat, and she touched him in little, rapturous ways: a stroke along the sharp edge of his cheek, a quick touch along the point of his ears; her thumb lingered against his lower lip, or softly dusted his closed eyelids. And all the while, she looked like she might fall at his feet and worship him – and then did nearly that.

The woman leaned down before her King and husband and planted a long, lingering and soft kiss upon his mouth, her hands still resting against his shoulders, before she sank slowly to the floor before him. Sarah was sighing with a kind of bliss that was almost painful, so wonderful was it to hear. Her green eyes had never sparkled so brightly, her hands had never run along his tightly muscled thigh so well...her cheek rested at his knee before she kissed him there as well, one little hand slipping between his legs to spread them just a few inches apart. The King raised a single arched eyebrow, but then just stroked his Queen's impossibly silky hair. “Precious thing...”

She smiled at him with those red lips of hers, like his voice alone was enough to bring her a kind of joy – and gods, did he hope it was – before she kissed the inside of his thigh. And then again, just a little further up this time. And again, and again, and...He hissed a little, his hips arching just slightly forward as her lips found their perfect target. “Sarah...”

The girl pulled away, face flushed, but still smiling. Her beautiful, thin fingers had hooked into the waist of his breeches and were pulling very slowly, but with a sense of determination. “Yes?” she asked him as she continued to pull just a little more cloth away, just a little closer to her goal. “Was there something you needed?”

“....nothing at all. Do continue.”

She was perfect, she was  _ perfect _ . She stole the breath from his lungs and the soul from his body when she loved him like that...and she  _ did  _ love him, it was obvious in every rapturous, adoring touch she made, every time her soft lips or supple tongue teased him just so. In another time, in another place, it would have been crass or debauched. Here, in this moment, it was the perfect evidence of devotion and worship. Everything she gave to him, he returned with the way his lithe fingers gripped her hair, with the way his breath just barely ghosted across his lips in a moaning sigh. Every muscle was shuddering in delight, and it was thanks to  _ her _ . Everything wonderful and horrible in the world had always been  _ her _ . 

She was finishing him. His grip on the girl tightened and he gasped her name very softly as she went. His blood was pumping more slowly and calmly now, the flush along his cheeks was dying just a little bit more. Sarah righted his trousers and wrapped her arms around her husband's torso in ecstatic devotion, whimpering, “I  _ love  _ you, Jareth.”

The Goblin King's eyes tripled in size.

“ _ Damn it _ ...” he was hissing now, finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his beak-like nose. “Bloody hell...” A dream, all just a dream.  _ Pathetic _ , he hissed at himself inside his mind. The peach, the bedroom...the King of Dreams had been fooled by magic of his  _ own  _ making.  _ My innermost desire is to have her say she  _ loves me!  _ What has become of the Goblin King _ ?

“Jareth?” She was looking up at him with those green eyes wide with worry – but no, she  _ wasn't _ . The  _ true  _ Sarah was most likely standing over his bed and  _ laughing  _ at him. Another victory in her court. And yet, she was still the one he wanted, and he felt himself burn for her with just a little more heat and intensity than he had even a moment before. His little Champion...every point she stole merely increased his desire for her. A game to never end,  _ that  _ was Sarah. “Is something wrong?”

The dream was almost done now, he could feel it starting to slowly fade along the edges, peripheral vision just slightly blurred. He smiled sagaciously. “Why, nothing at all, my pet...” He held her chin with the fingers that had just been pinching his nose and sighed. He might as well enjoy himself if he  _ was  _ forced into napping. But now, it was time to awaken. A drop of his passion lay burning on the corner of her lower lip, and he bent to kiss it away. The taste of himself on her soft mouth was like  _ utopia _ , and his long fingers curled around her delicate arm, pulling her in towards him. When he reluctantly parted from this perfect dream of his, he hissed, “ _ Sarah _ ....” 

“Yes?”

“Let's do this again, in reality, sometime.”

The next time he opened his eyes, the Throne Room had entirely disappeared. He was not sitting, he was sprawled on the elegant coverlet of his bed, and it was dark, save for the sputtering of candles in their holders. That Sarah...he was going to get her for this, he really was; once he found her...Jareth sat up with a smooth pull of his muscles, betraying no grogginess from his magically drugged nap. He was not going to let the girl get any more satisfaction in her victory than she already had, and he smoothed back his mussed mane of hair with an easy motion, looking for all the world like everything had gone  _ exactly  _ as he had intended it to. But  _ where  _ was that damned Sarah?

Ah – in his armchair, tucked into the corner of the bedroom. A fire was burning away in the grate, and she was curled in on herself much as her hound pup might be, chin at her knees and breath soft on her lips. She looked every bit as wonderful as the Sarah of his dreams, even without the gown of a Goblin Queen. All the same, Jareth snorted at her sleeping figure in his chair. “So clever, are we, Miss Williams? So grown and mature to be playing at petty vengeance with your  _ rescuer _ .” Miss Williams did not respond, she just continued on in uninterrupted sleep. “Hm. Should  _ anyone  _ else try something so brazen, an oubliette would be the very  _ least  _ of their concerns. You have no concept for how well I treat you, the liberties  _ I _ allow you.” No argument from the girl. She could sleep through any tirade the Goblin King could give her.

Jareth stood from the bed with a very soft, yet very distinct sigh. “You're a terrible little hussy.” Even so, before he could make good on any of his implied threats, he found he had crossed to the chair, pulled her gently into his thin arms, and laid her upon the bed with all the care a shepherd might afford his dearest lamb. Looking down at that obnoxious, stubborn,  _ sleeping  _ face, the King brushed a stray lock of her dark hair from her eyes – and pulled the coverlet around her. She could sleep on; he would go assess the damage done to his portrait hall for the present. 

 

* * *

 

 

Spring had come to the Underground. It felt like it happened all at once, and almost without warning. Sarah knew, logically, that the snow had been lessening and melting for weeks, but she awoke on this particular morning to find it had totally disappeared. The conveniences of magic, she supposed.

The air in the Castle and the Goblin City was heavy with warmth and just a bit too much humidity to be comfortable. It made the goblins irritable, hungry, grumpy, though they were usually all three of these things, so far as Sarah could say. They were animated, too – not that this was so unusual.

Sarah's grasp on time had become shady at best, living in a twenty-six hour world, but she reasoned that she had now spent more than four months Underground. It was strange how little that bothered her. Four months away from her life and from her family, and yet....And yet everyday, she was finding new things to see: new, ancient maps in the library; a new plant unlike anything else before it in the garden; a new path through the Labyrinth with the promise of new adventures and new creatures. It wasn't that she wasn't still mourning, but rather that her love of magic made everything so....different.

Sarah had loved reading about the Labyrinth as a child, and even in her moments of greatest terror for herself and for her brother, she had loved being in it, surrounded by its magic. And she had loved seeing magic spread through the rest of her simple, mortal life. It was all these things, combined all over again. She found herself in the seat of all grand magic, and despite the cost, she found she was loving it. And Jareth....Jareth was a  _ jerk _ , but he was still every girlish fantasy of sensuality she had ever been able to conjure. College boyfriends, theater boyfriends, they were attempts at a mortal life, but they never had lived up to her fantasy, just like everything else in her life. He could get under her skin and annoy her as no one else ever could, and yet she still found herself wrapped in his arms, night after night. It felt distressingly natural, and she had no desire to stop it.

But today, in the springtime haze, everything felt...fraught; like a wire, strung tight. Yes, it wasn't unusual for the goblins to be animated, but she'd never seen them quite like  _ this  _ before. They skittered about the Castle halls like furtive little whisperers, and they chittered and chattered in low voices, when they usually had no qualms with making noise. When she questioned Wog, the only answer Sarah received was, “Something happening, Lady!” 

“Well, what?”

“We'll see, we'll see!” He spun in circles like Tristan did chasing his tail, and when more goblins passed by, they promptly joined in.

“The words, the words!”

“Soon, soon!”

Sarah watched them until she felt dizzy and then just decided to leave them to their topsy turvy turnings. They didn't make any sense anyway.

Even so, she felt like she couldn't escape this sense of tension. It wasn't  _ just  _ the goblins, it was the very air, it was the thrumming of magic at the Labyrinth's heart that added to this sense of impatient waiting. Something  _ was  _ happening, Wog was right about that, but she just wished she knew  _ what _ . In the solar of the Goblin King, she stood on the balcony and looked out. Dark clouds were coming over the far away mountains, and they looked to her like a herd of wild horses, galloping and raging forward, unfettered and unbroken. Something was coming, and it was more than just the rain. 

A strange twitch ran through the woman then – like the pricking of gooseflesh, it fled down her shoulders and through to her fingertips. Sarah shuddered and tossed her hair to try and clear the odd sensation, but it lingered longer than a simple nervous twitch. Things... _ happened  _ in the Underground, in the Goblin King's castle, that she would have had no way of explaining: dresses and books and hairbrushes appearing whenever she looked for them, cups of coffee, even though the goblins forswore any knowledge of the beverage. It was easy to attribute all of this to her lover, but he didn't seem that particular  _ type  _ of thoughtful, to Sarah's mind. Similarly, she sometimes felt she just  _ knew  _ things. Oh, often she was sure she had read them in the great library and then merely forgotten, but she wasn't always certain that was the answer, either. This, right now, was like that, like some ineffable  _ thing  _ was gifting her this knowledge. Maybe it was the way the goblins knew; and they knew _ something _ , that much was obvious. Maybe it was a product of four months Underground, magic rubbing off on her. But she  _ knew _ .

She knew that in a far away castle of a far away realm, a little fey prince (who had once been so very much like her own brother) was anxious and angry and fitful. Some inner voice of knowledge whispered the cause of his distress: a natural born child of his adoptive mother and father, a  _ princess  _ adored and doted over. Sarah closed her eyes and swallowed with a dry mouth: these feelings of jealousy and hatred tasted toxic on her tongue, and entirely too, too familiar. And faint and deep, like the pounding of a pulse, those fateful words. “ _ I wish _ ...” 

Sarah's closed eyes opened with a hoarse cry, and her looks darted this way and that as more and more goblins went rolling about like whirling dervishes. “He's going to say it!”

“The words, the words!”

“How do you-” Sarah started asking one of the many who were now ignoring her, her pale hand clutching the column of her throat. There was no answer.

All at once, like a great pressure at last bursting, the goblins howled in fretful delight. Screams and cries that were twinged with pleasure erupted all around the woman, goblins dancing, goblins whirling like a storm throughout the halls. Sarah followed their path. What else could she do? She had no idea what was going on, and it seemed they certainly did. The majority of the press of goblin bodies were filtering slowly into the Throne Room, and Sarah elbowed and pushed her way there, damp palms rubbing nervously against her thighs.

On his throne, the Goblin King sat draped in elegant repose, a ghastly, goblin grin on his sharp teeth. He was so relaxed in his posture that his head almost dipped back below the curved arm of the seat, his left leg tossed over the opposite arm. His left hand giddily tapped his riding crop against his knee, but seated there, on his lap, was a babe of no more than six months; a girl child with wispy curls of gold and eyes as wide as saucers, more confused by her surroundings than frightened. The goblins shrieked and howled with delight at her appearance. Sarah swallowed her nerves and pressed her way to the dais where the King's throne sat.

Jareth at last seemed to notice her. “Ah, Sarah!” He sat up, swinging his leg forward and holding the balance of the child with his gloved right hand. Sarah had rarely seen her paramour grinning so greatly, teeth crooked and white in his sharp face. “How grand to have you hear, oh best beloved. Such a change for you, isn't it? Seeing this from the other side?”

Sarah found it difficult to swallow. “What do you mean?”

“'What do I mean,' she asks. As if you didn't know.” With his strange, wild eyes never leaving Sarah's face, Jareth leaned slightly forward and pressed his thin lips against the child's soft temple. The girl turned her head slightly, but was quickly back to observing the strange and cavorting creatures all about the Throne Room. Sarah's hands knotted anxiously before her. “Sweet, isn't she? Should you have preferred a younger sister?”

“Jareth-”

“Highness!” A round goblin with tusky teeth bounced by the arm of the throne. “We go now?”

“Yes, yes, go!” Jareth's humor seemed ridiculously high, for even his goblins could not irritate him with a child in his thin arms, sleeves dripping like curtains. “Should you like to watch her while I am.... _ occupied _ , my sweet? You  _ do  _ have such practice with children, no?”

Sarah chewed at the inside of her cheek for a moment – but nodded, arms outstretched. “Give her to me.”

Jareth tossed the round babe into Sarah's waiting arms, and the woman quickly clutched the child to her breast, heart pounding in her chest out of momentary fear the girl would fall straight to the cobbled floor. “It is time for my grand entrance.” Before Miss Williams could make further sense of his actions, Jareth had twisted his wrist, so that a crystal sat elegantly and delicately balanced against his fingertips. “A kiss for luck, precious thing?”

Sarah stared at him, green eyes round and red lips parted.  _ A kiss for luck? He wants me to kiss the crystal _ ? Blinking, she bent at the waist and just barely pressed her lips against the smooth, cool surface of the crystal, gaze flicking up to see her lover staring at her and the motion, a kind of gnawing hunger in his eyes that made Sarah's insides clench.

He cleared his throat slightly, eyes somewhat hooded and far more quiet than before. With another flick of his arm, his black and shimmering blue cape fell across his shoulders, and he tossed it behind him with his free arm. “Well?” he directed his goblins, who chattered and giggled with delight. Without another word to anyone, the lot of them blinked out of the Throne Room, so that all that was left were distressed chickens, clucking and molting their feathers as they dashed about – and also, Sarah.

The woman stood by the throne for several minutes, unmoving until the baby began to wriggle against her, starting to become distressed and cooing her confusion. Sarah at last gulped, catching her own saliva and a new breath of air before adjusting her hold on the girl to let her lean against her shoulder. “Oh my God,” she whispered aloud, and not even to the baby. Those eyes,  _ those eyes – _ the way he had looked at her! Had he always been this way, or was this a new development? How long had she failed to notice? Perhaps to the baby, and perhaps not, she whispered, “I think he's in love with me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sarah's feet carried her to a very strange room – a nursery. It was not as dusty as she might have expected, and Sarah found herself wondering about the last time it had been used. For Toby, perhaps, or had there been other children in between? Had Jareth been cradled and coddled in this room, or had he had children of his own to put here? If she had been discovered there, and asked how she had found the room in the first place, the only answer Sarah could have given was that it was that same instinct that helped her find missing combs and hair pins – or worse yet, the strange way she had of knowing that a princeling was wandering the Labyrinth now...

Well, it didn't seem to matter. Sarah found clean, pink blankets in the crib, as if their use had been anticipated, and she tucked the baby inside of it, settling herself in a rocking chair just waiting, waiting, waiting...

She must have fallen asleep, for Sarah only felt like she had blinked and she found Jareth leaning over her, a serious (yet curious) expression on his face. The light from the nursery window was dimmer now, and a small fire burned in its grate. Sarah startled slightly, and Jareth leaned back. “You look quite natural like that,” he said, his voice rather smoother than she might have expected. “I am  _ certain  _ you did not often adopt such a position for your brother. And still you'll deny me the pleasure of heirs from your pretty-”

Sarah scrubbed at her face and gave him a quick glare from her tired, green eyes. “What's happening?”

“Here, in this room? In the Labyrinth? On the molecular level-”

“In the  _ Labyrinth _ , gawd, you are the most sarcastic man...”

Jareth smirked at that, though. “Oh, he is losing.”

Sarah's teeth worried at her lower lip and she rose with a stiff motion from the rocking chair, rubbing slightly at her tense neck before peering over the edge of the crib. The girl was still asleep. “...her name is Marjolaine,” she whispered, and the Goblin King raised an arched brow at her.

“A  _ very  _ lucky guess.” Sarah didn't tell him the truth; that she knew it the same way she knew how to find the nursery, and it was a thought she found creepy and not worth dwelling on.

The woman wrung her hands nervously, teeth bruising her lip. “Is the prince in the Labyrinth?”

“He is – and no smart ideas about helping him, you're not to interfere in this bargain.”

“Why not? My friends helped me.”

Jareth's eyes slitted to a glare. “You  _ don't  _ need to remind me – nevertheless, it was you who spoke the words, it was your triumph. They helped you, but the power came from you alone. You wouldn't do that for him, you would carry him the whole way to the center, and he cannot triumph that way.”

Sarah's head drooped, she gave a heavy sigh; it  _ did  _ make sense, she couldn't deny him that. “...can I at least see where he's at?” At the look he gave her, she hurriedly added, “Pure curiosity, scout's honor.”

“...hm. Well...” The King sighed, twisting his wrist and producing another of his scrying crystals, holding it out to his lover as she leaned over his palm. “Fair warning: the Labyrinth conforms to the expectations of the person in it. You saw a land of vaguely threatening fantasy because that is what you wished to see. The children of the Underground, however, are raised with very  _ different  _ tales from your little book – and they have the proper respect for my power. What's more, they  _ fear  _ it.”

Sarah drew back almost as soon as she had looked inside the globe; the poor boy was sobbing with fear in a stone corridor whose walls seemed to weep blood. And all around him, hideous, gnashing yellow teeth waited in every shadow. It was a  _ nightmare _ ! “Is this what the Labyrinth is really like?” she demanded of him, small hands balled into fists at her side, almost shaking with a kind of betrayal. 

Jareth seemed somewhat taken aback. “Really like? Better to ask the Labyrinth, not I! It changes to suit the viewer, it is merely being  _ obliging _ . If it has a true nature, I know it not.”

“And the goblins and the fieries and Hoggle and Didymus – are they all different?”

“Ah. No, not all. My goblins, however, can also look very different from a different perspective.” He shook the crystal with his wrist, and, like a snow globe, the image swirled and changed. It was Wog in the glass, Sarah felt  _ certain _ , but he was nothing like the long-earned, wrinkly faced troublemaker she knew; where Sarah saw Wog as something harmless and well-meaning, a little like a pug, he seemed much larger here, bent over and with long strings of drool dripping from impossibly sharp teeth. He was one of many goblins stalking the halls of the maze, lying in wait, and Sarah turned away, eyes shut tight. 

As if sensing her distress, the baby Marjolaine opened blue eyes and began a nervous wail. Well trained, Sarah turned and quickly scooped the child out of the crib, checking her for damp and shushing her gently. Jareth watched every movement with a sharp, owl eye and Sarah's gaze settled on his face, a new kind of determination there. “There's another way to do this, you know.”

“I'm not going to like where this is going, am I?”

“Give the child back-”

Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “No, I'm  _ not  _ going to like this.”

“Wait.” Sarah briefly held her hand up to him, palm out, begging patience. “Just wait, listen. Give the child back – but not for free.”

Jareth's brown eye opened and peered at the woman before her, features tight. “What.”

“She's a princess, right?” Sarah adjusted her stance so the royal baby could rest against her hip. “And her parents would do anything to get her back. That puts a king and queen in your  _ debt,  _ Jareth.”

The King stood a little straight, the hand that pinched his nose instead going to hold the point of his chin. “...I'm not sure if you were ever told this, but the fey dislike being in debt to others.”

Sarah smiled – wide and confident. “That's kind of the point. You can make them do  _ anything  _ to get out of it. And for their child? Well, they might do quite a lot.”

It almost looked like his jaw dropped. Sarah stumbled slightly, because she suddenly did not have the warm weight of the infant upon her hip, and she found herself next to Jareth's bed.  _ Oh, of course...him and his glittery poofing about... _ Before Sarah could further press her point, she found Jareth's now bare hands tangling themselves into her long, dark hair, and his hot mouth pressed against her ivory throat. “You wonderful,  _ delicious, genius  _ woman, you...” She could not answer, for his mouth had found hers, tongues swirled together oh so briefly. “That conniving mind...” He pushed her back onto the bed, pinning her there with his body and covering her with nips and caresses of the most adoring kind. “What do I have to do to make you my Queen?”

Sarah stiffened beneath him, but the fey man hardly noticed, preoccupied with the stays of her gown as she took a sharp breath. “...well, I'd need to be respected, for a start. You'd have to care for me, genuinely and deeply, and I'd have to be your equal.”

Jareth stilled above her, his hands still tangled in the ribbons at her back, but he slowly pulled those away as he leaned above her, jaw slightly slack. “...when you say 'equal,' what you mean is not make you submissive to me, yes?”

“Oh jeeze, do we need to get a dictionary for this? Because I'm not getting a good feeling.”

Even so, he slid off of her body, off the bed entirely, steadying himself on one knee and hand out; it was that ring again, that gem like a crystal sparkling on his palm. Did he have that with him the whole time? Or was it just magic. “I am willing to hammer out the details once the bargain is struck.”

 


End file.
